


Dead on Arrival

by Nekositting



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bullying, Disturbing Themes, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, United States
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 11:44:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17202839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekositting/pseuds/Nekositting
Summary: Hermione had seen countless men and women come in and out of these doors. But none of them were anything like Tom Riddle.





	1. The High Priestess

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Tomione_Fest18](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Tomione_Fest18) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Detective Hermione always felt at home in the interrogation room. While she lacked the body to physically intimidate anyone into confessing, she always knew how to make criminals tick. She always got her man. It's too bad that the man in front of her is monster.
> 
> Tom Riddle as the suspected serial killer.
> 
> Hermione and Tom were both born in 1984.

**2018**

Hermione had seen countless men and women come in and out of these doors. But none of them were anything like Tom Riddle.

From the moment she stepped into the room, she had known that something was there. The flash of _other_ in his eyes had been unmistakable. It set her on edge, the desire to give chase and unveil the beast inside too strong an urge to resist in the current climate.

The city was tense from the most recent murder, and Hermione was all the tenser from not being able to solve it.

Hermione scrutinized her man. Outside these walls, he may not belong to her, but here, he was hers.

He was statuesque. Beautiful. His cheekbones could cut diamonds with their sharpness. The ringed black of his irises and the waves atop his head were rich and gleaming. It struck her, that beauty. It was a kind she’d never seen in her interrogation room; a type unfit for the world, and best kept behind plexiglass. Confined.

From the starched, white button-down to the dark slacks encasing that body, he was like living, breathing marble. Immune to the discomfort of the hard, plastic chair he sat upon. Confident, possibly arrogant.

_And fit. Someone who could drag a body if need be._

The small smile on his lips only compounded the strange, suffocating emotion blooming in her gut. She pressed onward, allowing the discomfort to steel her throughout the questioning she intended to perform.

“Good morning, I’m Detective Hermione Granger.” She stuck out her hand, forcing a slow smile she’d practiced countless times in front of the mirror on her face.

He rose, the screech of the chair like pinpricks of ice across her spine.

She already knew who he was. Professor at Cambridge University in the U.K. Head of the Psychology Department and researcher. She’d learned him in a matter of minutes, annotated his profile and pieced together his background with little else to go on except his professional accolades.

His time in the States fit the dates of the murders like a puzzle piece. And his medical background, the years spent in medical school prior to graduation, a ripe environment to hone the skills necessary to cut down his victims. Or most notably, Maria Corbett, their latest victim.

She wanted him; in her gut, this was him.  

She almost withdrew her hand, when presented with the incongruous flicker of what she saw before her and what she wanted to see. It was as if she was looking at two different people: two sides of the same coin.  
  
“Tom Riddle.” He grasped it and squeezed, firm. She didn’t break eye contact, observed him as closely as he cataloged her before releasing his hand. But not before his thumb found her wrist, sliding along inside of her palm. Hermione swallowed back the sound of her breath hitching. His eyes had gone cold.

Hermione had seen it, but what it was that she’d seen, she didn’t know. It grated her, that touch. Despite the arctic film of his eyes, those fingers had been warm. Real. She straightened up higher, slipping her hand back to her side to safely curl her hand into a fist, away from view.

He sat down within moments, without needing her to ask. She followed; her partner, Officer Remus Lupin already sitting at the opposite side of the room, his chair facing the suspect.  
  
Shuffling her papers, she gathered herself. _Had she shaken hands with a murderer?_ It was a question she always asked herself beforehand; the question had never seemed so desperate as now.

“Before we begin, very briefly—”

Riddle nodded, his smile still in place. Hermione continued.

“—You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. Do you understand?”

Riddle nodded, his smile stretching wide on his face. Something niggled at her. Like familiarity. As if, somewhere, she’d seen that expression before. It looked earnest and sweet. The frostiness of his eyes even melted at the corners. She didn’t understand that look. She’d never seen this man before, and yet—

She annotated her confusion on the pen-pad before her, insecure about the words ‘familiar’ and ‘earnest’ written there. It made her head itch, her mind trying to reconcile the person in front of her with the dread in her belly. She couldn’t.

“Good. We wouldn’t want you to be ignorant of your rights.” Hermione smiled, draping her fingers over the table’s surface. She was slow, forcing her shoulders to visibly relax. She didn’t have a good reason to be on edge, to threaten him. “Especially for such a prominent man as yourself. I hear that you’re a professor at a top-notch university in England, and quite young at that.”

Suspects, especially the arrogant, were easily made to self-implicate when given enough rope to hang themselves. She needed the conversation to stay just that, a conversation, not an interrogation. It would breed comfort, and from there, the sense that she was an ally. Until finally, she would receive his trust.

“Prominent? Top-notch? Detective, you’re much too kind.” Riddle smiled, the remnants of gelidity dissipating into pleasure. Hermione’s lips twitched further up into a smile.

_Bait swallowed._

“I wouldn’t call Cambridge the best, however. Especially not with institutions like Stanford and Yale in the States, heading the best education this country can provide.” Hermione leaned forward, noting the way he mirrored her. She didn’t react to the name of her own own university falling from his lips—most academics knew Stanford already.

“Then why not teach here then, Tom? Can I call you, Tom?” Hermione inquired, eyes appraising when his lips unfurled into a deeper smile.

“Of course, detective. But only if you allow me to call you, Hermione.” Hermione laughed, quick to catch her anxious laughter and morph it into the sound of a conspiracy between friends. “And yes, while I would have enjoyed spending more time in the States, I found the allure of the English countryside too difficult to ignore.”

“As well as your duties as an instructor? I think it's quite admirable that you can find the time, even with your workload, to visit the States. How do you do it?” Hermione made another show of shifting in her seat, pushing her writing pad out of the way to get that much closer to Tom, her lips parting as if impressed by his accomplishments.

Tom leaned in to meet her halfway, delight written on his face. _An educated man,_ Hermione thought, _does he suspect?_

“Thank you, Hermione—” She tried not to shutter her expression of affability when her name fell from his perfect mouth.

“—but, as you mentioned, it isn’t often that I can travel. My duties as an instructor keep me quite busy. It is only because I am on a year-long sabbatical to work on my book that I am here at all.”

Hermione assessed him through the lens of her crafted emotions, categorizing each exhalation, each flex of his arms as he rested them on the table. He was relaxed, she could tell. His eyes, too, were focused. Intent.

 _Good_.

Hermione took the tenuous connection they had between them and leaped into the second stage of the interrogation, aware that she was entering murky waters. The kind her superiors had warned her to tread with utmost care and to avoid unless given no other choice.

“But why here, if you don’t mind my asking? Why no other country? Our records indicate that you’ve traveled at least seven times to the U.S. over the course of ten years.” Hermione took in the way his eyes remained locked on hers.

_No shift. No twitch. He did not avert his gaze._

A man like Tom would know that the police could lie, yet even a man like Tom should provide a clue to his thoughts with such a bold accusation.  His behavior left few possibilities; that the book-smart professor didn’t know an accusation when he saw it, or, that he had expected the question. She betted on the latter.

“Unless, of course, there’s someone special in your life that keeps dragging you back?” She prodded, her voice lowering to a whisper. His lips twitched, and Hermione’s eyes devoured the movement.

 _There is someone in his life_ , her mind supplied.

“No, no, Hermione. I live the sad life of a bachelor, you might find. I’m afraid the distance between Cambridge and Illinois is quite severe,” Riddle explained warmly, his eyes never wavering. Hermione tried not to frown with frustration. She didn’t believe him, but she didn’t have a way of contradicting him either.

She needed his baseline, a means of uncovering when he was recalling a memory as opposed to fabricating a lie. The eyes were the window to the soul, _to the truth_ , but Riddle was ostensibly a void.

So she had nothing but her inclination to disbelieve him. No partner in his life, no cracks in his narrative, and zero recognition of the leading questions on when he was in America. Sucking in a calming breath, she pressed on, knowing that if she was wrong, her credibility could be compromised.

_If my questioning hasn’t done so already._

“So, back to your visits, are you suggesting that you were here, on say, April 26th?” Hermione inquired. Remus was silent, but she could see the way he moved in his seat from the corner of her eye. He wasn’t pleased. Perhaps, she’d been a bit off in calculating how much mucking up this interview would affect her partnership and place here in the station.

“Yes.” It was a single answer, but one Hermione relished all the same. She’d expected him to invoke his right to silence, or worst yet, ask for an attorney. It was often what educated suspects did, regardless of guilt. But Tom, no, Tom continued to surprise. The hunt was still on.

Hermione continued, ignoring her partner’s eyes boring into the side of her skull.

“And the night of September 26th, were you in the United States as well?”

Riddle tilted his head to one side, the only outward sign indicating that he’d heard before leveling her with a polite smile. Hermione tried not to wilt beneath that glance. It was unnerving in a way she could not describe, and not a look she could trace back to a source of emotion. He’d become unreadable.

What had she done wrong?

“Correct. I was in my hotel, working on my book. Unsuccessfully, I might add.” Despite not knowing what he was thinking, she was resolved to getting as many details from that night as he would allow before catching onto the fact he was a suspect.

“Can anyone confirm that you were there that night?”

“Yes. After I’d lost my patience with my draft, I decided to visit the bar downstairs to take my mind off the manuscript.”

Hermione nodded, shooting him a look of genuine understanding. It was always easiest to lie, to _deceive_ , when the basis for the lie was the truth.

“I completely understand. Before my days in the academy, I, too, spent countless hours working on my thesis for my graduate degree.”

Riddle leaned forward, an interested expression melting away the strange gleam in his eyes. Hermione kept her smile in place, internally pleased.

“What was your degree, if you pardon the intrusion?” Riddle asked, his posture shifting once again. His pupils had dilated. Even through the darkness in his gaze, she could tell.

“English, as strange as that sounds considering where I am today.” Normally, she wouldn’t tell the truth, but with him, she would take no chances in breaking what trust she had. This was all borrowed time until he called his attorney.

“That’s admirable, detective. Perhaps, I might ask _you_ for some pointers for my manuscript.”

Hermione grinned, no longer bothering to mask the nervous laugh that erupted, and glanced at Remus, giving him permission to begin. Only the briefest flare in his eyes told her that he did not approve, but he would play the game she’d set up.

“Perhaps. Now then, Tom—” Remus rose from his seat to pace behind Hermione, arms crossed and his face narrowed with snide irritation. Riddle needed more coaxing, to feel isolated and uncomfortable before he’d have no other recourse but to trust her.

“—tell me, what do you know of the Voldemort slayings?”

Tom’s eyes went ice cold, a look of disgust twisting his features into a frown. Remus walked around the table while Hermione tilted forward for a better look. Her partner smoothed his hands over Tom’s shoulder, a violation of personal space that had Hermione imagining the warmth of his skin spread out and into her fingers once more.

“Enough,” Tom said, voice clipped.

“What is it that you know, Tom? As painful as this is to say, you’re suspected of being involved, if not of being the _killer_ himself,” Remus continued, removing his hands and circling around the table.

Tom twitched, and the ice in his eyes cracked, a look caught between shock and displeasure shadowing his handsome features.

Hermione almost smiled. Genuine or not, that was the first useful response he’d given them since the interrogation began.

“He’s a cold-blooded killer. A mindless psychopath that feels little to no remorse for the lives he takes.” Hermione slanted herself towards Tom, lowering the tone of her voice to one that sounded like fear, eyeing the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed, how his eyes shifted away from hers before looking at her again.

“We suspect that he’s an educated white male. Middle to upper class. Tall and fit, like you—” Remus had made his way to Tom once more, squeezing his shoulder again, voice accusatory. This was their craft, _her_ craft. What she lacked in physical strength she had Remus to compensate while she more than made up the rest in cold manipulation.

“—I don’t think you did it, truly, but if there’s something you know. Anything at all that could further this investigation and lead us to the correct conclusion, we need to know,” Hermione interrupted Remus, her voice offering false protection to Tom if he would only confess something. Anything.

Tom was silent. She switched the narrative, eager to apply more pressure. Remus didn’t move, but the look he gave Hermione was easily interpreted. She’d gone too far in his books, and it was only Tom’s acquiescence to this aggressive line of questioning that held his displeasure at bay.

“It’s okay if you weren’t at the bar that night, that you took a stroll and made your way to Hyde Park. I hear the lake is quite peaceful, that it can settle one’s thoughts when they’re in turmoil—” Hermione herself got up, making for Tom’s side as she crouched down to his eye level. It would give him the illusion of security, that she was on his side. Her eyes never left his.

“—Or, the perfect place to take someone in the dead of night.” Remus’s fingers tensed, and Tom almost squirmed in his chair. Hermione tried not to thin her lips at the reaction.

It was wrong. A _lie._

“Hermione, please—” Tom begged.

“It’s ok, Tom. You weren’t at the bar, were you?” Hermione interrupted, her voice now so soft it was little more than a whisper. “There’s no need to be ashamed. We can fix this.”

“You were outside, correct? Ready to see your plans come to fruition after weeks of watching her, of taking note of each of her habits.” Remus butted in, his voice harsh with disgust.

There was no evidence that their victim had been at the park. But then again, there was hardly any evidence to be found with the body. All they had was the dirt beneath her fingernails, caught between the webbing of her toes. It was consistent with soil high in moisture content, but given the massive size of the lake, the dirt could have come from anywhere—not just Hyde Park.

“You chose her. It wasn’t serendipitous. You’d planned to take her from the beginning. That was the only reason you’d elected to stay on the outskirts of the main city. It wasn’t to write your _manuscript_. Isn’t that right?” Finally, Remus released Tom and made to sit down again, his part played.

Tom clenched his eyes shut, and Hermione licked her lips. She went on, tone pleading, her mouth close to the shell of his ear

“Be honest with me, Tom. Even if, say, you _didn’t_ kill her, that you had no hand in her murder, you can tell us your story. You can lead us to the true killer and share your side. It’s okay if your mind was a little hazy that night, you did say you drank, correct?” Now was Hermione’s time, she’d maneuvered Remus to make the trap, to drive him to her so she could induce his admittance of guilt.

Tom opened his eyes, his cheeks flushing red with what could only be frustration. A thrill of excitement shot up her spine.

“I had nothing to do with the killing, or any of these murders, Hermione. I swear it. I would _never_ —” his gaze flickered somewhere in front of him, most likely Remus, yet she couldn’t turn away from him, his agonized expression drew her in. His eyes returned to hers before he continued on, his face tearing at the seams except for his eyes. The gleam was off. “—I didn’t pick that hotel to commit a _murder_.”

Remus elected that moment to make himself known. In an instant, he snatched the chair at his side, carrying it over to where she still stood and set it down behind her. She didn’t break character, not once. She sat back, breaking the unnatural position she’d twisted herself into to stay eye-level with her suspect. Then, she shot Remus a glare she calculated would make Tom squirm in his seat, question the way she was being treated by a fellow officer.

Smoke and mirrors, all of it. She turned back to Tom.

“Tom, Corbett was an adulterer. There wasn’t a single man she didn’t latch onto behind her husband’s back. You and I both know that. It’s not like she or any of these women really mattered. Voldemort was doing society a favor by eliminating them. Isn’t the world better without them?  It isn’t like they’d ever stop, right?”

Tom licked his lips, and Hermione’s eyes traced the motion.

_Nervous. Elevated body temperature. Fidgeting._

He’d break yet. Even educated men were susceptible when exposed to adequate stimuli. All she had to do was prod at his underbelly by following his pride. Killers, after all, were never the villains of their own stories.

Hermione shot him a reassuring smile, like the ones her own mother used to give her when she’d broken an expensive vase and felt all the more sorry for it.

“I-I didn’t know any of these women, Hermione. I only learned of their names in the news. I didn’t mean anything by staying at that hotel.  I—yes, I didn’t stay at the bar the whole night, but I swear I didn’t take a walk and commit premeditated murder.”

He looked at Hermione first, the hollow of his eyes a type of insincere she wanted to claw out of them despite the contortions of his face being so genuine as to make Remus shuffle behind her. He turned to the latter beseechingly, and Hermione knew, she just knew her partner couldn’t fathom what she had seen there written in the depths of Tom’s gaze.

Hermione made a show of sighing aloud, standing up and shooting Remus a look. Remus returned one back, the _‘what do you think you’re doing_ ,’ transparent in his eyes.

Hermione ignored it and became the aggressor herself.

“Then, it seems that only leaves us with the story that these women had been killed for murder’s sake. It was a baseless and inelegant culling. You had no motive or reason for doing it. Perhaps, it was a sexual thrill? Or worse yet, you were curious to see just how they would unravel—break beneath your careful eye.” She had moved behind Remus now, physically drawing the lines between them with her body. Her words were an exaggeration on her part, but not without purpose. If Riddle was the killer, to label his craft as nothing more than a barbaric atrocity, this misunderstanding could spur him into snapping.

Tom’s mouth parted, a flash of irritation sparking through their depths. But before Hermione could savor it, the fire in his eyes dissipated as quickly as it had come. The sound of Remus clearing her throat grated her ears.

“I did not _kill_ Maria, or anyone. I am _not_ a cold-blooded killer, don’t you understand?”

Hermione did, she just didn’t believe him.

The same, however, could not be said for her partner, who had gotten up and made his way to the door without pretext. Hermione had no choice but to follow.  
  
As they left the room Remus turned to her, echoing her thoughts on Tom with his own conclusion.

“Just because he expected the questioning on those dates doesn’t make him a killer, Hermione. It just makes him smart. Next time, don’t poison the well on witnesses we can’t _hold_ for more than 72 hours.”

She gazed at Tom’s tear-streaked face through the one-way mirror, her resolve hardening.

_Liar._


	2. Death

**1990**

Everything was ice.

The bed Tom lied on, the room he slept in, and the eyes that looked upon him when he first set foot into this orphanage: it all cut him to the bone.

_Like father’s eyes. Like mother’s knife._

It was home.

* * *

 Tom did not remember his parent’s faces.

They were faint outlines in the sand, pictures he drew along the dirt when he was alone.

_His parents._

The children asked him about them, curious to know even though they didn’t care. So many questions, so many whispers and plies for his attention, but Tom never told them.

He couldn’t tell them even if he wanted to.

He didn’t know their names.

All that he knew was the steel of a knife and the tears in his mouth. The screams were the closest to “ _mum and dad_ ” that he’d ever come.

Amy Benson, Dennis Bishop, and Billy Stubbs wouldn’t like that explanation.

* * *

 Sometimes, Tom saw them.

Could picture them behind his closed eyelids, his parents’ pale and drawn figures in the shadows. He could trace the outlines of their bodies, smell the sugary tang of a fruity perfume and the bitter mask of a man that looked just like him, but many years older.

They had to be his parents. It could only be them. He wouldn’t be seeing them if that weren’t the case, except—

_Had my mother always been this pale?_

She was broken on the ground, his mother. Her eyes were staring directly at him, the faint color of her cheeks draining away in the red rivulets beneath her dark ringlets. He could see his face in hers, in the slant of her nose and the black of her eyes, but she was empty.

 _Hideous_.

Her arms and legs were twisted, bent. Like the dolls he’d often bury in the dirt; the ones he’d find hidden away in one of the many rooms in the house and play with when his mother was too busy crying in the living room.

“Stupid _bitch_.”

Tom didn’t understand what the words meant. His mother was on her back, her fingers gnarled and lax at the same time, but his father—

_Had my father always looked this scared?_

His father’s eyes were wide, the blue in their depths so clear that the lights in the living room reflected in them like glass, like the water Tom played with in the tub.

“You weren’t s-supposed to die. You weren’t _fucking_ —”

It was only several years later, beneath the hostile gazes of the other children at the orphanage, that Tom learned what those words meant.

* * *

  _Click. Click. Click._

Tom closed his eyes, the rain hitting the window dragging him under. It was always like this, these dreams. They came and they went. On and on and on. His father’s words were an echo in his brain.

“ _I can’t. I can’t_ — _”_

His father’s voice beckoned for him in the dark. Tom followed it, walked and chased it like his mother always asked him to. _Please, listen to your father_ , she would say, her voice raw and eyes emptied out. _Please don’t make him wait._

Until his father came.

 _“I’m sorry, I-I’m sorry_.”

_Click. Click. Click._

His father would come into view, red-rimmed eyes and tears trailing down his cheeks. And Tom, always, forever, reached for them. Wondering to himself if these were his own memories, if what he saw each and every night, in these dreams were _real._

Until Tom’s fingertips met nothing, the weight of his father’s tears lingering in the back of his mouth despite how mysterious this all was. Like he could taste them, like he could touch his father and bury his fingers into his eye sockets and lap at the red that leaked through—

_Click._

_Bang._

Tom awoke to the flash of lightning in his room, his skin wet and sticky.

He wondered if he was soaked in red again.

* * *

 “ _Freak.”_

_“Bastard.”_

_“Monster._ ”

It was what his father had called him before his head shattered into fragments of white and red.

It was what the children called him too.

He wondered if their heads would explode too. If their tears would taste as sweet as his father’s had been.

* * *

 The snakes were cold.

But there was comfort in their slick bodies, in gliding his thumbs over their scales. They were kind. They didn’t shout at him, didn’t steal from him when he’d had his back turned. They held still in his palms, burrowed into his pocket and slept there.

It was the closest thing to affection he knew.

Until the children took that too.

_Amy Benson._

_Dennis Bishop._

_Billy Stubbs._

They told the matron, and the snakes never returned. But no, they’d never abandon him. Never, no.

They’d been his. All his. _Only_ his.

It took him days to realize why they never came.

Mrs. Cole was killing them, burying them into shallow graves beyond view. It was only late at night, when he’d awoken to the sound of the _click, click, click_ on the floorboards, that he’d learned the truth.

That night, Tom had chased after that sound, as he did in his dreams, and—

Tom had watched her lift the silver machete in her hand, absorbed the red that gushed from their little bodies very much like father’s, like mother’s, when Mrs. Cole chopped of the snakes’ heads.

He didn’t look away. Not when their little bodies were still moving even after she’d killed them.

* * *

  _“Freak.”_

_“Bastard.”_

_“Monster.”_

Tom wasn’t.

He wasn’t the one killing snakes in the dead of night.

* * *

 His new school was no better than the cold hallways of the orphanage, but Tom welcomed it.

There were no pitying glances. No strangers asking questions about how he’d gotten his bruises. The teachers spoke on, and no one bothered him.

The other children from the orphanage weren’t in his lessons. They didn’t follow him, didn’t speak to him on the way to and from school. They kept their distance until it was back into the icebox, into scratchy sheets and lonely nights.

_Monster._

Tom wondered if Amy Benson, Dennis Bishop, and Billy Stubbs knew what monsters looked like. When he looked in the mirror and it was only ever his father that stared back at him.

* * *

  **1992**

Time was meaningless.

 _Meaningless_. A new word for his arsenal, another page in his tattered story. _Meaningless._

That was what this all was.

The bland meals at the orphanage. The droning voices of the teachers during lessons. All were painted in varying shades of gray, smudged and smeared like pencil etchings on paper.

_Your parents never loved you._

Tom didn’t know what that was.

_Your parents abandoned you._

If Tom still saw them in his dreams, still heard the click of metal, and smelt the stench of iron in his nose, had they really abandon him?

He saw them every night. He knew them better now than he did then.

And yet—

He wasn’t sure. Not when the world often twisted on its head, when everyone seemed to see in color, smile and thrive, while he—

All he saw was gray.

It was in the eyes of the children in the orphanage. In the uncaring glances of the adults that walked past them at the bus stops.

_‘I can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry.’_

Until the answer finally dawned on him.

The colors were beneath the skin.

* * *

“Did you think we wouldn’t see?”

“Did you think we wouldn’t know?”

“Freak.”

“Bastard.”

“ _Mon_ —”

“Leave him alone.”

At the sound of her voice, Tom’s world twisted on its axis.

For the first time, he tasted color.

He didn’t even need to dig his fingers into a snake’s scales to find it this time.


	3. The Chariot

**2018**

They found the next body two weeks into the fall. Almost a month after the previous victim had been found.

Another girl, similar to the last.

_Brown, curly hair. Honeyed-eyes. Medium-to-short body frame. Tan skin._

It’d been the coldest night of the year. The body was stiff and several shades of blue, still fresh. It was times like these that she detested the cold. It always muddled up the time frame, made accurate science into a guessing game.

Harry, the head of the FBI joint task-force, her new, fresh hell and personal burden on this case, eyed the body. A gloved hand lifted a brown lock of hair, pinching it between his fingers.

“Detective.” She shifted her gaze away from the victim, reluctant to turn away.

 _Voldemort_.

It would only be a matter of time before a message was unveiled from the body, addressed to _her_. A game, then. With blurred rules where the hunter was the hunted.

“Chief.” Her new partner stood, walking back and ahead of her to greet the man in question, his sharp green eyes not sparing her a glance.

Dumbledore was bundled in several layers of coats, all of varying degrees of color. She didn’t flinch, hardly surprised to see him or his atrocious sense of fashion. This was the fourth body this year since the bodies began to crop up in their jurisdiction. There were countless more throughout the states; but this year, it seemed, the killer had taken a keen interest in their city.

Hermione, knowing the stakes, couldn’t let this case go. Not entirely, at least. Harry could retain as much control as he liked as long as _she_ stayed on the investigation.

“Has she been identified yet?” Dumbledore’s gaze was piercing, but the cracks on his skin only evidenced bone-deep exhaustion. Hermione shook her head, a ghost of air escaping through her parted lips. There were no identifying documents in the victim’s pockets or around the body. She had been swiped clean of it. All they knew was that she was female and had been dead for a little over a day, if not more, considering the weather.

“The FBI’s facial recognition software should have something in a couple hours.” Constantly undercutting her, she tried not to grimace and be ungrateful. This was a murder and catching Voldemort was the priority. It’s what she consciously told herself. Yet those notes. They were addressed to her.

_Her._

“And the note?”

Hermione’s lips cracked at the edges at the knowing tone in her chief’s voice. _Brown, curly hair. Honeyed-eyes. Medium-to-short body frame. Tan._

Why this abrupt change from victims of all sexes and appearances to ones that looked so much like her? Hermione had not pieced it together yet, but she would. She just wasn’t sure she could do it before the consequences of Voldemort’s interest caught up to her.

Nor could she promise herself that it didn’t get to her.

It did.

These women were the shadows of her own death, stalking her day and night.

“No note yet, I’m afraid. It’s going to be a hassle to find it in all this snow.” Harry pressed his fingers through his unruly hair as he watched their specialists work the scene. Dumbledore’s lips pursed into a line at her response, clearly not pleased, but then he smiled. His eyes warmed, even if they had not lost their sharp quality. But before he could speak—

“We’ve got it!”

Hermione turned and ran back, ducking beneath the police tape and heading for the body lying prone between two oak trees covered in snow.

She didn’t stop until she was hovering over the forensic’s back, his head bowed over the body.

“Any prints? Hairs?” Hermione asked, already knowing what the answer would be. Voldemort never left a trace. It was what made him something like a mirage but for the destruction he left behind.

Yet now, more than ever, when his victim profile had become so specific, did they have a chance to catch him. To have him slip up in his fervor over _her_ , no less.

_How ironic._

“None that I could find, but here, take a look. This is strange—”

Harry hadn’t been faster, but he was suddenly behind her, tugging the note out of the hands of the forensic specialist before Hermione’s fingertips so much as grazed against the man’s hand. Incensed, but wise enough to stay silent, she followed after Harry as he turned away from the body, waiting for him to finish reading.  
  
Soon enough he held the note in offering behind him, and she snatched it, ignoring how he made a beeline to Dumbledore.

Her breath caught. She read it once. Twice. She pored over the words until she could imagine a nebulous figure leaning over his desk, putting pen to paper. The image choked her.

_Dearest Hermione:_

_Their eyes are not quite right._  
_Yet still, I try,_ _  
_ to capture the shade of sunrise in their gaze.

— _Yours, L.V._

She didn’t understand. No matter how hard she looked at it, tried to slice through the spaces and typed-text, she couldn’t unravel the message he wished to convey. It was as cryptic as the last, if not more. Harry and Dumbledore’s conversation sounded distant, hushed, in the wake of Voldemort’s words.

A love note. She couldn’t have known him, no, she would have realized, seen him. There was no one. Not even Tom, and the royal cock-up she’d made of his interrogation.

Why would Voldemort want to capture the sunrise in their eyes? Who was he trying to memorialize through a slew of bodies in the snow?

“Hermione.”

It took her what felt like an eternity to tear her eyes away from the laminated note and fix her gaze on Dumbledore's. His eyes were intent. They had a pull of their own.

 _You’re too close_ , his eyes said. He didn’t need to speak the words to convey them. Harry stood just behind him, the green of his eyes solemn and decided.

 _I’m not_ , she pushed her own reliability back at both of them, keeping the chill settling in the marrow of her bones out of her eyes.

_I’m not._

* * *

Tom was waiting for Hermione when she left the station, his body leaning against the stone column at the front entrance of the place. He didn’t look any different than he had the first she’d met him, and for some reason, that pained her. There were no traces of their time in the mirrored room on his features: no tears nor the cold.

 _Impeccable hair. Dark eyes. Full lips twisted into a smile_.

He hadn't been invited, and in fact, she knew he knew that she found his presence unwanted. The mischievous gleam in his eyes gave it away.

“Mr. Riddle,” she said, her hands shoving into her pockets to chase away the chill. Normally, she would have ridden in the car with the coroner, but Harry had claimed that esteemed privilege, his gaze frigid on hers as the doors had closed. So she’d ridden back with an officer and attempted to walk off the anger forming inside her from the parking lot to the station. The weather had gotten colder, and she more indignant

Riddle didn’t move, but his eyes, they sparkled.

“Hermione.”

She tried not to bristle at the use of her given name. Instead, she twisted her lips into a smile she knew made even the most intimidating men falter.

_They won’t fear you, at first. But they will, once they realize you’re not just another pretty face to gawk at._

“To what do I owe the pleasure? Here to confess?”

Riddle laughed, his eyes wrinkling at the corners with pleasure. It made his face glow. Like his face was the moon, reflecting the sun ray’s to blind all that dared gaze at him. She didn’t look away.

“No, I came to see you, actually.”

Hermione lifted a brow, closing the space that remained between them only to stop when she was a foot away. She refused to bridge that chasm. Not when he was taller than she’d anticipated. It didn’t matter that detectives and officers alike crowded the front of the station. He was dangerous, even if they didn’t know it.

“I’m not going on a date with you if that’s what you’re implying.” It was all any of the men that stepped into her station wanted.

Riddle’s lips curled, his hands pushing out of his own coat pockets. Hermione’s eyes flickered to them, noting how perfectly manicured each finger was. She hadn’t had the time before, to look at those hands, but now—

She tore her gaze away, frustration blooming in her chest at the knowing gleam that filtered in those eyes.

_Bastard._

“No, I would imagine so. However, that is not why I’m here.”

Hermione straightened, her teeth catching on the inside of her cheek when he stepped toward her. Her first inclination was to take a step back, the itch in the back of her mind demanding that she keep her distance. She didn’t. Something else, curiosity or spite, perhaps, held her in place.

“What do you want if it isn’t to waste my time?”

Hermione wasn’t about to admit she was curious, but damn it all, she was. The last time she’d seen him was during the interrogation, which, to her chagrin, had not gone in the direction she’d had hoped. Everyone had bought the story he’d sold them to the point that _she_ had been the one admonished in the end for being too hard on him.

To say that she wanted little to nothing to do with him after that was a gross understatement, and yet—

Here he was, back at the very place that had brought him to tears. What a laugh. She wanted to tear her hair out and unveil just what he was hiding behind that handsome face.

“Your FBI partner, Harry, approached me last week seeking advice on the Voldemort investigation.”

Hermione’s insides went cold. Harry did _what_? That _bastard_.

“And did you give it to him?” Hermione snapped after she’d recovered from her shock, heat flooding through her veins, eating away at the cold slapping against her cheeks.

She was _livid_.

Dumbledore had not told her. Harry hadn’t told her. In fact, he’d outright lied to her. She’d asked months ago to bring in a separate pair of eyes with a background in psychology to assist with profiling the killer, and Harry had said they had the FBI taking care of it, but she’d never seen the results.

“Of course not, as delightful as it was to receive that invitation from the head himself, I found myself hesitant without your say in the matter.”

His words doused her anger in an instant. She was thrown. At no point, given the horrid experience she’d put Riddle through, did she expect him to defer to _her_. She’d rattled him, attempted to ply him with false trust, and then broken it as swiftly.

With how disgustingly male law enforcement was, she’d expected Riddle to latch onto the opportunity to prove a point. Join the good ole’ boys club, shake hands with her green-eyed demon of a partner, just for the sake of seeing her squirm.

Hermione’s gaze narrowed.

_What game is he playing?_

“To which, you decided that the best way to proceed was to see me personally? How awfully kind of you,” Hermione said, biting the inside of her cheek. She was tempted to step into his face, crowd him into that pillar just for the satisfaction of shocking him.

She didn’t, in the end. But the temptation still remained.

“Correct. Although, that is only _part_ of the reason,” he offered, a flush blooming over his cheeks. Hermione could tell it had nothing to do with the cold.

Hermione tried not to snort.

“I thought I might take you to coffee to discuss this. You are under no obligation to agree, of course. In fact, you can decline right now, and I will not seek you out again.”

Hermione shifted, dragging her hands out of her pockets to cross her arms.

 _Well,_ Hermione thought, _this was certainly unexpected._

Her first instinct was to say no. However, that was not what came out of her mouth.

“Fine. I’ll have a coffee with you. I’ll let Harry know you agreed. Do you have the NDA with you?” He passed her the signed paper along with the original document. He’d retyped the whole thing, replacing Harry’s name with her own, his signature a sloping cursive that was languid and confident, like him.

“Wait here.” As she walked into the station, she wanted to kick herself the very second she said the words, but she didn’t. Not when Riddle was outside, waiting, and just down the hall was Harry, ready to be confronted.

She slammed the papers down on Harry’s desk, ignoring that he was on the phone while she turned heel and made for the door.

“Yes, wait, I’ll call you back— _Hermione!_ ” Scowling, she stopped short of the door frame before releasing a frustrated breath through her nose and turning back around. The glare she leveled at him was lethal. She hoped he  _choked_ on it.

“I’m leaving in less than three minutes.” She declared, barely able to hold onto her composure. Harry glanced at the papers, likely spotting her name and Tom’s signature. His shoulders tensed, and Hermione had never felt more vindicated in her life.

“And what is this?”

“It’s exactly what you think it is, but it turns out he simply didn’t want to talk to _you_.”

“And what makes you think I want you talking to him?”

Hermione counted to one hundred and back to calm the rush of blood that flooded her ears. She could scarcely believe what she was hearing.

“So we’re not jointly partnered on this case, then? It’s the Harry dog and pony show?” Harry was silent, his face a mask she didn’t want to interpret.

All that registered was the harsh sting of betrayal.

“That’s what I thought,” and with that, she was storming out of his office, making her way back to Tom, but not before snatching a complete file from her desk to share.

She found him where she had left him. She crossed the bit of space still between them, his eyes iridescent beneath the buzzing lights at the front of the station.

There was something about them. Familiar. It niggled at her, that expression. It almost looked fond, but surely, that couldn’t be right. It was for that reason alone she didn’t think to back away.

“Don’t mistake it for anything more than what it is, Riddle: a consult. I’ll hear you out, but no promises.”

Riddle’s lips spread into a smile so wide it almost hurt her to look at him. It was beautiful and earnest and—

_You can’t trust this man. Not after what you saw._

_But_ , Hermione argued in her own head, _that is precisely why I should go with him._

She couldn’t trust him, didn’t believe that he was the innocent that he portrayed himself to be. And it was for those very reasons that she should keep him close. If this was an act, it was only a matter of time before it crumbled.

“I won’t.”

* * *

They found themselves in a coffee shop a short ways from the station shortly after that. Riddle was the perfect gentlemen, and Hermione, well, she was adamant to keep things professional. It was an easy feat.

Riddle, at no point, made a move to convert their little meeting into more than what it was.

“Do you recall where these notes were recovered?” They were the only ones with a solid wall at their side, a private nook away from the prying eyes of the staff and anyone that might enter the shop.

Hermione hummed a moment, taking a sip of her coffee, before speaking. It was good. Better than the swill they made back in the station.

It had made her nervous at first, to speak of this in public, and with him. Her fingers had itched to take a hold of the gun strapped to her side, but that initial reaction had dissipated as quickly as it had come.

“Before the case was officially transferred to me, the previous detective’s notes indicated that the messages appeared within one foot of the victim’s body. All wiped clean of fingerprints, despite being laminated for posterity by the killer. Further, none of the contents included in these notes seem to indicate that they hint at a known, future victim. They seem to be separate, if not confined, to the specific murder the note is found with.”

Riddle cupped his chin in thought, his eyes flickering to hers before drifting off, beyond where she was seated at the coffee shop. She was tempted to look. She didn’t.  
  
She wanted to believe as Harry, Remus, Dumbledore, hell, the whole station did, that Tom had no part of this. And when he was human, like this, features cast into idle thought, she could see it. A helpful, learned man, who, when told he’s the villain, sets out heroically to help the case and prove her wrong.

“And before now, his other crimes, did you note any differences between the messages then and those he’s sent now?”

Hermione frowned, brow furrowing as she debated on telling him the hard truth. The short little blurbs, while not fundamentally different, had taken up orbit around her. So had the victim profile when there had been none before.

She decided to approach it nonchalantly, hoping to hide how uncertain and terrified it made her. That Voldemort could get her before she could get him. That being gotten wasn’t a simple matter of losing. It was the prospect of death, ruination. She shuddered at the thought of it.

“Well, for one, the notes before were not addressed to me. In fact, the notes had little, if nothing, to do with the kills. They were passages of popular literary poets: Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Lord Byron, Pablo Neruda.”

It clicked.

Hermione swatted Riddle’s hand from the photos, moving away the pictures of the bodies to arrange the ten images she’d brought with her of Voldemort’s notes.

“He’s a meticulous killer. Structured and nuanced. Each word he’s chosen, he’s chosen with care—” Riddle said above her as she looked through the photos, settling once more on the image of the most recent message she’d received.

“—From the arrangement of the bodies to the phrases from popular poets—see, like in this note from January—he is a man of the world. Refined tastes, too. See here, in the note from March, he cites to Bronte, one of her least popular novels.”

Hermione froze, all the air in her lungs leaving her.

“And along with his attention to detail, he is obsessive. Well, at least he doesn’t think he is. He has a single-minded goal, but—” Hermione started before pausing, her hand rummaging for her cup to only stop when Riddle handed it to her. A shudder shot up her spine when his fingers meet hers, and her eyes catching his.

His eyes were dark, the same as they’d been in the interrogation room, except now, they were scorching.

“Voldemort wants something from me, of me. What is it?”

Neither looked away from the other. Something was building between them, unspoken. It was asphyxiating, that sensation. It tasted like fear and—

This sudden warmth that flooded her had nothing to do with the coffee she pressed against her mouth, that she swallowed down without tearing her eyes away from Riddle’s. It was something new, and she wanted it to stop. Right this instant.

“ _You are mine, mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon’s wind, and the wing hauls on my widowed voice. Huntress of the depths of my eyes, your plunder stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.” **1**_

And like that, with nothing more than a single phrase, the warmth vanished.

Her veins had gone cold, but nothing could compare to the weight of sheer _knowing_ that settled over her shoulders and threatened to crush her.

_It was me._

* * *

_Damn it all_.

Hermione wanted to press her face into the pillow and scream her lungs out. She was furious.

Riddle was _perfect._

It was unreal, the way he managed to parse through the images she’d shown him of the crime scene and note the details she herself had missed. To pluck out the answer, as if it were waiting for a careful hand to release it from its cage. He was _good_ ; he had an eye for detail and was quick-witted.

She hated to admit this. She’d been hoping he’d be utterly useless, ready to take her triumph to Harry and throw it at his feet. She had _known_ Riddle was intelligent, of course, but intelligence in a vacuum did not make an expert.

_And yet, Riddle, no more than an academic tucked away in his ivory tower, had been able to lead her in a logical direction._

One that she was loathe to share with her own department.

Hermione flung her coat to her bed, kicking off her shoes and storming to her bathroom on the opposite wall. She didn’t bother looking at herself in the mirror, afraid of what she’d find.

 _Shit_.

She couldn’t afford to let Riddle go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 - This is a stanza from Pablo Neruda's poem _In My Sky at Twilight_.


	4. The Star

**1992**

“Of course, _you_ would defend this, freak.” Amy Benson’s face twisted, her brown eyes wild and sharp as a knife’s edge. “You don’t know what you’re doing. If you think you’re doing something nice, that’s where you’re wrong. He’s evil. Just look at him!”

Tom didn’t move. The insults hardly phased him now. He paused, however, when the girl in question did not move, her bushy hair inches from his face, her hands spread outward as if to physically shield him from the two.

Tom’s fingers itched to touch her hair.

“I don’t care. You’re going to leave him alone, or I’m telling the teacher.”

He gave in almost the same instant Benson and Bishop turned on their heels, a malicious twist of their lips that promised retribution later. Tom paid those looks no mind, not when he was finally _touching_ —

The girl’s ringlets were soft against the tips of his fingers. Almost frail, like the serpent coils he teased with a nimble finger. He wondered if this was what friendship was, this frailty in his hands. He wanted to crush it and hold it close, chase away the ice flooding his veins.

“What are you doing?” Tom didn’t stop until the girl whirled around and pulled away, honeyed-eyes gazing back at his own with obvious bewilderment. His lips parted, his throat suddenly to dry.

He swallowed, but the rock in his throat refused to move.

Her eyes stole had stolen the very words from his mouth.

“Why were you touching my hair? It’s _rude_ , you know,” The girl huffed, her cheeks going pink. Tom couldn’t look away. This was color. Life.

She wasn’t gray.

Just like the snakes.

“Because it was pretty.”

The girl’s cheeks grew warmer, brighter. Tom swallowed it up, hungry for it.

He moved before he could think to stop himself, his hand reaching for the little ringlet that fell over the side of her face. It teased at him. He wanted to _touch_ —

She shuffled away from his reach before he could grip it between his fingers, grind the strands and memorize their texture. His blood went cold at the anger that sparked in the girl’s eyes.

“You can’t just touch people without _permission_ , y-you ask first!” She stamped her foot for emphasis, and the ice in his veins melted. There was no scorn. No looks of horror and disdain.

_She’s not afraid. She’s not. She’s okay._

“I’m sorry.”

The words tasted funny in his mouth. He’d never used them before. He’d never had to. The snakes understood why he had to rip out their scales to chase away the cold. The other children in the orphanage didn’t deserve his kindness when they tried to hurt him.

The words were strange, but they weren’t terrible.

“Oh, well—” the girl’s eyes boggled, her mouth shooting open as if she hadn’t expected an apology. Then, her lips were twisting, shaping themselves into an expression Tom saw once in one of his picture books.

 _A smile_ , the book had said.

It lit up her face, made the caramel of her eyes gleam like the rays of the setting sun. He bit back the urge to close in on her.

“—apology accepted. Just don’t do it again, or, you know, ask, next time, ‘cause you can’t just go around touching people,” she rambled, and Tom listened, relished it, tasted the tenor of her voice in the back of his mouth.

It was strange, in a way. He was so accustomed to violence that this rare show of kindness both unsettled and drew him in. Like the moths he would see diving headfirst into lights in his room. Chasing, forever, the promise of that warmth, to only be denied.

“Okay.”

The girl’s lips curved, and Tom had one moment to capture that expression before she was reaching for his hand and dragging him away from the front lawn, into the hallway of the school. To where? Tom didn’t know. He would follow her to the ends of the earth as long as her hand was in his, kept _touching_ him. It didn’t escape his notice that now _she_ was breaking the very same rule she’d just given.

 _Don’t touch me without my permission_ , she had said _. Unless it’s me touching you first_ , she had neglected to mention.

Tom squeezed her hand back, the ends of her hair tickling his face from how closely he followed behind her. The fragrance of freesia and something else, _like his mother’s perfume_ , was thick in his nostrils. He sucked it all in.

“I know this isn’t much, and you might even think this is _weird_ , but—” the girl began to talk again, the soft pitter of their footsteps drowned out by the rush of heat bubbling beneath his skin. It was hard to listen, to _focus_ , but still, he tried. “—I thought I might show you a nice spot to read, you know. In case they come bully you again, and I’m not there.”

Tom’s lips twitched. It hurt his cheeks.

“The library has this little corner in the back, where the oldest books are. I like to read there. It’s always super quiet, and no one ever bothers anyone there.”

It took Tom an embarrassing amount of time to realize that he was smiling. It wasn’t pain, no. His cheeks just hurt from smiling so hard.

_Ah._

“Oh! I just realized.” She ducked through an open doorway at the furthest end of the hall before stopping. Her hand released his, and Tom was sorely tempted to reach for it again, to keep that warmth at the center of his palm. He didn’t though.

“So silly, I can’t believe I didn’t ask before. What’s your name? I’ve seen you around school, but, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone mention you around here,” she asked, scratching her chin. Her cheeks were pink again, Tom noticed. He didn’t know why that pleased him. “Everyone calls me Granger, the know-it-all, but that’s _not_ my name.  Trust me. It’s _just_ Hermione Granger.”

The girl was panting by the end, her voice less controlled as before. Shrill. She was odd. Tom didn’t know what to make of that response, never before having experienced something like it. Everyone just ignored him or hissed at him.

The teachers were nice. Sometimes. But they didn’t count. They only ever said nice things when he did what they wanted, twisting his face into an expression that itched on his face.

But this girl, Hermione, she was different.

_She was warm._

“Hermione.” The name fell easy from his lips. Like it fit. Belonged. “I like it. My name’s Tom R- _Richards_.” He didn’t know why he lied, what compelled him to keep this to himself, but before he could question it, give it more thought, the look Hermione’s gave him ripped him away from those questions.

She blushed, her ears going red this time.

He laughed, and it was strange. It was—

His chest was so tight it ached, but he found that he didn’t mind the pain at all.

 _It was better than the cold_.

“Can I call you Hermione? I-I’m sorry, I didn’t ask.”

She beamed at him, her hand settling over his shoulder with a warm note in her eyes. Tom wetted his lips, unable to look away.

“Of course, but only if you let me call you Tom,” she teased.

Her warmth chased away what was left of the cold.


	5. Hanged Man

**2018**

Tom was waiting for her with a curl of his lip and a smile in his eyes. It was the same each time.

He stood in front of the station, his hands tucked away in his pockets and a filter of white smoke escaping his lips. Regal, in every sense of the word, but what was worst about this, about _him_ , was that the more often he came—

The less disagreeable she found him.

He was a cultured man that could twist the thoughts and hearts of those around him. She noticed it when he spoke to Harry or Dumbledore, their smiles sparkling with a gaiety that belied the flashes of something else in his eyes, the curl of his lip too high and tight on his face.

In those moments, she didn’t know whether she hated him for fooling them, or took joy in the sly looks of collusion he shared with her.

It was fascinating to watch him work, even when, in retrospect, it should set her on edge. Because of course, if he was capable of manipulating the people around him, and did so with alacrity, he was just as capable of manipulating her.

“Hermione.”

But the way he said her name, his eyes appraising her from her feet to the tops of her head, as if committing her to memory, Hermione found it more and more difficult to ignore the implications.

* * *

“We’ve gone over why he kills now, but do you think there’s anything to be gleaned about the change in victims from understanding why he killed before? It doesn’t necessarily follow that he killed them for the same reasons,” Tom asked at the same time Hermione pressed her coffee to her lips, her mouth flooding with warmth at the taste of caramel.

They were at a different cafe this time. It was hidden inside a business building, the scent of espresso beans and chocolate, the only outward indication it even existed. Why he did this, felt the need to take her to these places, she didn’t know. She’d yet to be disappointed.

It was almost as if he knew exactly what she liked.

“Well, I have a couple of theories on _why_. From our last conversation, you implied that Voldemort is obsessed with me, or maybe, at the _idea_ of me. Which means there is an original brunette, with brown eyes out there in his past, haunting him. If we assume that his reasons haven’t changed, only that he’s gotten more specific, I think the reasoning behind his kills is some form of connection. And these new victims, they account for how much closer he feels to attaining his... desire. ” The word tasted foul in her mouth. Voldemort would never have her. Not in this lifetime or the next, and certainly not under his lethal knife.

He was an apex predator, or at least, he _thought_ he was. Predators that wet their appetites on just about any food source did not suddenly narrow their choices. It was unheard of in both the animal and human world. Which is why she was certain this was about a separate animalistic need that she hadn’t quite shared yet with anyone but Tom. Not honestly, anyway. Her assessment of Voldemort’s search for a partner was buried deep in her last profiling report, sitting under a stack of papers on Harry’s desk.

“It is possible that he is killing these women as wish fulfillment, to satisfy both a sexual and/or romantic need that he does not or cannot possess?” Tom offered.

 _No_ , Hermione frowned, _that’s not right_. Tom bent forward, his hands settling over the sides of the coffee table. It was a possessive gesture, but also—

If not for the curiosity in his eyes, Hermione might have assumed he’d been resisting an impulse to lunge.

“No. That’s not it. From our latest victim, Melinda Johnson—” Hermione said before lifting the image of her bloodless body and handing it over to Tom. “—after the forensics took a closer look at the body, the cause of death was not exsanguination as we had noted in our reports, but rather, look here—” her finger traced over the victim’s neck. “—see the ligature marks? It was strangulation with a rope, too impersonal to be a crime of passion.”

Tom’s eyes lingered over the image for a moment before shooting back to hers, his lips pursing.

“Voldemort has always been distanced with his kills. I don’t know how to explain it, but if I had one word to describe his prior kills, it’d be cold. Calculated. There is no hint of pleasure; these killings are almost obligatory in nature.”

Tom cocked his head to one side, his brow lifting with interest.

“Obligatory?” Tom repeated, and Hermione took that moment to sip at her coffee again when Tom grew impossibly closer. It was to be expected. The table was small and their seats were clustered together.

Hermione went on as if she hadn’t noticed the shift in atmosphere, in the weight of his gaze.

“Yes, even the notes he left on the bodies were impersonal. But now, though his detachment from the victims hasn’t changed, it’s as though he’s stirred into life. _Inspired_ —” A curl fell away from her ponytail as she spoke, but before she could tuck it away, Tom’s hand was already _there_.

He caught the ringlet between his fingers, soft and delicately as if he were holding something fragile in his hands, and tucked it behind her ear. Hermione’s couldn’t move. Her eyes sought his, wide and confused.

“Like an artist?” Tom said after a minute, his tongue flickering from his mouth to wet his bottom lip. Hermione traced the motion, unable to avoid it when they were so close. “The next Rembrandt, perhaps?”

It felt like an eternity before she could think to reply.

“No, I think, he wants to be a Claude Monet. The Baroque period is characteristic for its love for grandeur and exaggeration, to the point that later art critics found it disingenuous. And one can say that Voldemort is certainly grand, given his medium to express himself to the public, but—”

Hermione swallowed when Tom’s hand settled atop hers on the table, the same one he’d used to tuck away her hair. She went on as if her heart weren’t threatening to climb up her throat.

“Voldemort’s kills are less about the reality of the kills, but of their perceptions, of what it is that he _sees_ as opposed to what _is_.”

* * *

_What was that?_

Hermione had excused herself to the bathroom as soon as she was able. The distance did nothing to settle the twisting in her stomach, however. It was a thrill, a euphoric high that refused to die down.

_God, they were discussing a murder case. This wasn’t the time for this._

Her thoughts were chaos, turning back to the way his fingers had felt in her hair and along the back of her hand.

What came after, however, had been worse.

_‘And what is it that Voldemort perceives if it isn’t about the physical bodies? Why is it that he kills, Hermione?’_

_‘For connection.’_

_‘With whom? Who is it that he wishes to connect to?’ Hermione’s throat seized, her hands pulling away from his. The physical stimulation was too much. All of this was._

_She needed to think, a moment to distance herself_ —

‘ _All of the evidence points to you.’_

_Tom’s words were like thunder in her ears. But it was his eyes, dark and fathomless, empty and full, that made her stomach lurch, made her skin itch._

It was unmistakable what she’d seen. She wanted to scream her lungs out, in this bathroom, until she couldn’t anymore.

_Tom had been afraid._

She was too.

* * *

Harry had found the document. She’d written a shorter version, with the incriminating assessment in the larger packet. Trust him to have gone through the whole thing.

He’d known immediately what she was about, and it hadn’t gone well.

Neither Harry nor Dumbledore had removed her from the case, but Dumbledore had ordered a detail outside her house and Harry’s darkened eyes told her she was _this close_ to losing everything.

She hated it. The feeling of their eyes on her, of their worried glances and—dare she say it—suspicious ones.

It was as good as a death sentence in the station. They thought her compromised, a liability and a danger. Voldemort staying in their city to kill victims that had a passing resemblance to Hermione had called the FBI down upon them, and Harry’s people lingered in commandeered offices, hogged department resources; and generally, treated her peers like incapable, compromised children.

Not even Remus had a kind word for her, an unfortunate friendship with Harry’s parents had rendered him cleaved from her trust. Not that Remus had done much to assuage her fears of disloyalty, whispering with Harry in corners and behind closed doors where he thought Hermione couldn’t see.

It grated her, made her want to scream into a chasm until her throat was raw and flaying at the edges.   
  
The dislike was palpable, transparent in the shape of their eyes and the way they smiled her. They suspected her.

_All but him._

Tom’s eyes hadn’t changed.

He was still afraid, for her, of course. But he didn’t regard her as a liability, as a danger to their investigation. He saw her as she was: the best detective to lead the case, the one who had profiled Voldemort better than anyone.

If interdepartmental politics hadn’t tied both Dumbledore and Harry’s hands, she was certain the latter would have swept her off the playing field and the case the moment they had learned that Voldemort was after her.

_Or, the perception of me, as Tom had hinted at._

* * *

The coffee dates never stopped.

Neither did the notes nor the bodies.

The sweeter Tom tasted in the back of her mouth, the more bitter the writings on the wall.

 _Dearest Hermione_.

At times, she thought she could hear that voice. Each cadence, each divot, and indent of the pages, like an imprint in her mind. She wondered if she was going mad when she did. If, perhaps, Dumbledore was right to watch her as he did.

 _She’s soft,_   
_like the skin of a kitten’s paw._   
_But you,_   
_you are the claws._ _  
The lioness on a prowl._

The voices came and went.

But Tom’s—

His voice was always just an inch beneath her skin.


	6. Wheel of Fortune

**1992**

Hermione tasted of sunshine on Tom's tongue.

It burned him with each swallow.

Or maybe, it was the cocoa she’d shoved under his nose, a lift of her brow daring him to refuse the drink. He didn’t.

The paper cup warmed his fingertips, and with each sip, his eyes on hers as he savored the treat, his insides heated too. It was strange, that heat. He couldn’t pinpoint whether it was the drink or just her, if the spark in her eye and the dimple at the side of her mouth, were the reasons for the writhing in his stomach.

“Do you like it?” Hermione asked, leaning forward at the same time her hands curled over her own cup. They were off the side of the main entrance of the school, tucked beneath a massive birch tree. The perfect place to savor their drinks without any interruptions. “I know it isn’t much, but it’s my mum’s favorite recipe. She told me I should bring you a cup since you’re my friend.”

_Friend._

He found himself smiling before he knew it, swallowing back another gulp of the hot chocolate despite how hot it was. It was scalding, but he couldn’t get himself to stop even when it made his tongue numb.

* * *

 The birch tree at the side of the school quickly became the place for them to meet. The library was only a refuge once lessons began.

“What are you doing?”

Tom froze before returning his attention to the snake in his hands, his thumb petting its head. The creature shuddered in his grip but didn’t make a move to escape. It knew its place. The snakes always knew.

“Playing with the snakes.”

There was a shuffling a short distance behind him before a body was at his side, a familiar knee and a shoulder brushing against his side. Tom’s fingers paused.

“Won’t it bite you? Mum says they’re nothing like the dogs and cats we keep at home. That they’re _dangerous_ —”

Tom laughed, humored. She didn’t know.

He ripped his gaze away from the snake in his grip to look at her, a smile on his lips that he only ever shared with her. He held the snake out to her, his thumb still tracing shapes over its scales. Imagining the bright red rivulets just beneath its coils.

He hadn’t picked at them since he’d met her, but the urge always remained. Always lingered in the back of his palate when she was gone.

“They can be, but not to me. See?”

Hermione’s eyes looked at him for a moment before dropping to the snake. She was licking her lips.

_She’s nervous._

She didn’t need to be. The snakes would never hurt her.

“I-er, okay. But what if you make it mad one day?” Tom tilted his head, considering the weight of her words and how her eyes widened with horrified fascination at the way the snake began to coil in his hands.

“Don’t be silly, snakes don’t get mad. See, she’s harmless. Touch her and feel.”

Tom pushed the snake closer, and Hermione froze up at his side before reaching for it. Her fingers were shaking, her teeth catching on her bottom lip. She looked scared now.

Tom was about to pull the snake away when Hermione finally reached for it, tracing her fingers over where the snake’s body had twisted around his arm.

“Oh,” Hermione breathed, her shoulders slumping and her body leaning closer now. The fear dissipated in a span of nothing, and Tom watched the change. Relished it, even. “It’s cold.”

Tom stilled at the same time he squeezed the snake in his palms. The creature didn’t twitch or move. It held perfectly still in spite of this change. He wasn’t scared, but—

“I wonder if that’s what the textbooks mean when they say that snakes are cold-blooded?”

Tom didn’t reply. He couldn’t.

_'I’m sorry. I-I’m sorry.'_

_Click. Click. Click._

_Bang._

There was a rush in his ears.

* * *

Tom didn’t cry out when he was shoved against the brick wall of the orphanage. Billy was standing over him, Amy and three other older children at his back.

He had managed to avoid them so far, but there was only a matter of time before they would corner him. There was nowhere else to go, after all.

The scratchy sheets and the cold settling into the marrow of his bones were a part of his life. All of it was.

“What did you _do_ to him?” Billy sneered, his spit spraying against Tom’s cheeks. Tom, for his part, did not move. He held still in spite of the groove of those bricks against his spine. “I know you took him. I know you’ve been playing with your stupid snakes again.”

Billy yanked Tom by the collar and shoved him back into the wall, harder this time. Tom let out a startled breath before his lips curved, painful and foreign. He was cold, but the thoughts in his head, the little whispers that sounded like mother and father at his back—

They burned. Like ice.

“I didn’t.” He denied it, but he knew they wouldn’t believe him. The look that flashed in Billy’s beady little green eyes, like a cross of fury and disbelief, evidenced as much.

“ _Liar._ I bet you and that _stupid bitch_ from school stole it.”

It was all the warning Tom had before Billy released him and punched him, his knuckles cutting against his cheek and into his mouth. Iron exploded in his mouth, but it was the _red, red, red_ flashing in the back of his eyes that startled Tom.

_Bitch. Bitch. Bitch._

Tom found himself hitting Billy back before he could stop it, question the fire in his lungs, the flood in the back of his ears.

Billy cried out, but Tom didn’t stop, even when he landed on top of Billy, when his fists burned and ached from hitting him again and again and _again—_

_He’d called Hermione a stupid bitch._

His lips curved into a sneer, a violent impulse he’d buried beneath the skin, kept hidden between the bars of his ribcage, rattling in his chest. An objective part of him wondered if that was his heart, but then that thought was gone. It went up in smoke.

_Stupid bitch._

Tom didn’t stop until Billy’s face was red, until Amy’s screams and different arms yanked him up and away from Billy’s body.

**_Stupid bitch._ **

The red dripping down Billy’s nose and mouth was better than all the scales Tom had torn off from the snakes.

* * *

They never called Hermione a bitch again.

They never called him much of anything either.

They were silent, their eyes haunted.

Tom didn’t know what this feeling was, this sweet and suffocating and thrilling sensation that both weighed him down and lifted him up, but—

He loved the feeling all too much.

It was like the honey in Hermione’s eyes.


	7. The Lovers

**2018**

_Dearest Hermione:_

_Her smile,_  
_enchanting, though it was,_  
_pales to the radiance of your mouth._  
  
_It is a star,_  
_a galaxy undiscovered._  
_my mouth chases after that milky dew,_ _  
_ for a chance at—

 _Yours,_ _  
_ _LV_

If the letter were not laminated, she might have crumpled it with her hands. She wanted to wrench it apart, incinerate it, toss it into the woods they’d found it, and forget she’d read those words.

They haunted her, his phrases. There was no avoiding them.

_Him._

* * *

“You can’t keep doing this!” Hermione’s hands slapped against Dumbledore’s desk, fury and exhaustion and desperation in the curve of her lips. She knew it, had seen that serrated edge in her lips when she’d looked at herself in the mirror. She wanted them cut with it, Harry, her competition, and Dumbledore, her mentor turned jailor.

“I can’t have my every waking step followed. You’re choking me, Chief. It undermines my every decision, and every day they look to the FBI for answers when they haven’t found much of anything! You can’t starve me, isolate me or beat me off this case, so stop trying to make it worse!” The walls were paper thin. Everyone in their floor could possibly hear her. She didn’t care. That wasn’t the point.

They needed to understand. Dumbledore needed to stop. Harry needed to read the room. Voldemort was becoming bolder, more daring with each and every kill.  
  
Torn between keeping details tight to their chest and protecting the public, Harry had unilaterally announced Voldemort’s victim profile to the public, which had caused not only mass panic, but clever, dogged journalists with nefarious intent towards drama to connect the dots. Her erstwhile partner had made the rest of the world as suspicious of her presence on the case as the station.

“Detective—”

Hermione let out a frustrated huff, shoving her hands away from the desk to walk around the room. Her heart was racing, her fears and anxieties like live eels twisting her stomach. This wouldn’t end well. She knew the signs.

Voldemort was hunting her, and he was doing a fine job of sequestering her from everyone else using his kills as propaganda. She should have known—

“ _Hermione_.” She stopped at that, her head snapping in her Chief’s direction at the inflection in his voice. It had been stern. No room for protests. Hermione’s stomach turned at what that could mean.

Dumbledore’s eyes were clear as day, blue as the summer skies, but the emotion in them, Hermione couldn’t read it. Harry still said nothing, but the weight of his eyes told her what was coming. That _bastard._

“I understand your frustrations. You are in a difficult position; however, we can’t afford to let you out of our sight when he’s targeting you. There are only so many women in the city before he begins to hunt you.”

Hermione clenched her hands into fists, her teeth catching on her tongue to stop the hiss that wanted to climb out of her throat. She _knew_ that. Of course, she did. Voldemort wasn’t killing in the span of a month like he’d had before but in a matter of _days._ The panic of his escalation wasn’t to be borne by the public, or her fellow officers.

“Look, I get it. I know, but you can’t pretend that you don’t see how everyone else at the office sees this. They act like _I’m_ the one that’s about go off on a killing spree.”

Dumbledore nodded, his lips turning into a grimace that made him age at least twenty more years.

“Which is why I’ve called you into my office, Detective.”

Dread curled in the pit of her stomach at once. His eyes had gone apologetic, pitying. All within a span of a minute. Hermione tried to level her breathing, to stop her nails from biting into the meat of her palms because she knew that look, could guess what it was that Dumbledore was about to say without her needing to hear it.  
  
“And of course, that’s why he’s here, isn’t it?” She spat out.

When the words finally came, she didn’t react.

“For the better interest of this case, we’ve come to the difficult decision to remove you from this investigation and place you on paid leave to quell the anxieties in the office. It is not easy, Detective, but for both your sake and that of this office, you must step down.”

Hermione swallowed hard, throat dry and papery. There was a rush in her ears, a whistle screeching in the back of her mind.

“No,” Hermione’s words were no more than a whisper. All of the righteous indignation and rage that had possessed her minutes into the meeting fled her. She wondered if the burn in her eyes were tears; it was growing difficult to make out the details of Dumbledore’s face or Harry’s green eyes.

“Please leave your badge and weapon with me.”

Hermione’s lip quivered against her will.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Hermione.” Harry looked compassionate, pitying.

She stepped toward them, eyes unwavering as she unclasped her gun and laid it out on the desk. The badge came next; perhaps, the worst of it all.

She’d worked hard to climb to her position. She’d done everything necessary to become the best officer in the force. To manipulate and lie, for justice. All she did and was, was for the greater good and now—

Hermione left without sparing either of them a second glance. She knew that if she looked, she’d cave under the weight of her own grief.

* * *

 “ _Chicago is just a little safer tonight, with the lead detective on the Lord Voldemort case having been given paid desk leave. As we’ve all been made aware, the infamous Voldemort, has undergone a recent change in his victim profile, targeting brown-eyed and brunette women in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Authorities say if you match this profile do not go out alone at night_ — _”_

Hermione switched the channel.

“— _it’s irresponsible, is what it is. She knew, no_ — _from the get-go, when that first victim showed up—”_

_Click._

Everything fell into silence.

She ripped her gaze away from the blank television screen, unable to stand the vile and wretched things that were said, not only about the abysmal turn of their investigation, but about _her_.

Her eyes settled for the world outside of her apartment, noting with detached wonder how little the outside world had changed while hers, for the most part, had come apart at the seams.

The lights outside weren’t any brighter. There were no protesters in front of her door and the graffitied words ‘ _murderer_ ’ had long since been scrubbed off from the sidewalk, leaving behind white streaks of concrete that defeated the purpose of removing the words in the first place. It was the only evidence of change that permeated the dank and disappointing vision of her neighborhood.

 _Well, not the only source of evidence_ , a snide voice muttered in the back of her mind.  
  
On the corner, the black bulk of a police charger hovered, its occupants hidden by the opaque windows. It was impossible to make out who they were. She doubted any of the officers in the force were falling over to watch her, but given the severity of the situation, it would be no surprise if—

_Knock. Knock._

Hermione let out a startled sound, her hand clutching onto the blanket for dear life for a moment. Sucking in a deep breath, Hermione rose from her couch and made her way towards the sound, a scowl settling over her face. It was probably one of her guards, sent to make sure she was fine.

 _Like the good little prisoner she was_ , Hermione thought with rancor.  
  
It wasn’t.  
  
“Hermione.”

It was pathetic, really, but she threw herself at him in an embrace so tight she feared she had crushed the takeout he had in his hands. With food between them, and one arm carrying a tray of drinks awkwardly swung around her, he helped maneuver them inside.

Embarrassed, she let go and returned to the couch, huddling onto it and positioning herself much the same way she had before when she’d been watching TV and gazing out the window.

_Gods._

For her to turn to _Tom_ , who she still mistrusted to a certain degree, when she was at her most vulnerable, but—

She didn’t have a choice. He was all she could turn to. He was here, while everyone she thought she could have turned to wasn’t. _Abandoned._ Tom hadn’t lost sight of who she was in spite of the notes bearing her name in ink and shame.

_Dearest Hermione._

She wondered if Voldemort knew just what this did to her. If he was purposely sabotaging her role in the station with the end goal of separating her from the pack her for easy pickings. It wouldn’t surprise her. It was what she would she would have done she been a serial killer.

“I took the liberty of stopping by the cafe down the street as well.”

Hermione sighed before acknowledging him again, shifting over to provide him with space to sit.

Tom was standing at the closed entryway of her apartment, neck covered in a thick and luxurious green scarf that was probably worth two month’s worth of her pay, and a dark coat that brushed his knees. He looked like he didn’t belong in her mousy apartment, with its creme walls and traditional kitchen on the adjacent wall, but she wasn’t about to comment on this point.

She wasn’t in the mood.

“I came as soon as I saw. I don’t think we’ve ever met up here, have we?”

Hermione bit her cheek at the teasing quality in his eyes, at how he kicked off his shoes and left them on the welcome mat inches from the door and shut the door behind him with his feet. It was oddly familiar. She didn’t know when they’d gotten so close that this little show didn’t bother her.

“Shut up, Tom,” she snapped. Yes, he’d picked her up before at the steps of her building. Offered to walk her in, which she’d declined. But now, here he was, bridging the short distance between her living room and the door to place his gifts of food and drinks on the table.

“Yes, I freely admit I’ve been curious to see inside of your home for some time. It is disappointing that I finally do so under such poor circumstances. You deserve better.”

Hermione reached for the cup on instinct, deflecting his overly intimate support and relaxing the instant her fingers made contact with the cup. It was hot in her hands, but nothing she couldn’t handle. The heat was a comfort borne from long hours at the station, hot caffeinated beverages buoying her sleep deprivation, and burning the roof of her mouth with regularity.

“Those girls deserved better.”

Hermione took that moment to take a sip from her drink, to hide her shame. It wasn’t coffee, but something else. It was rich and decadent on her palate. She relaxed further into the couch despite herself, her eyes falling closed in pleasure.

It tasted just like her mother’s hot cocoa, though not quite. There was a note of cinnamon in the drink, one that her mother rarely added to her special recipe.

“What coffee place did you say this was from?” Hermione asked after swallowing back more of the drink while staring at him from over the rim. “It’s good.”  

Tom watched her before taking his drink and settling over the seat just opposite of hers. Hermione followed his every move.

“I made it.”

Hermione nearly choked on the drink, gagging on the sip she’d taken. Riddle looked amused, as if he were barely repressing the desire to laugh.

_Prick._

After reigning in her coughs, she leveled him with a look that she knew bordered on aghast but she didn’t care to fix.

“You _made_ this?” She asked, eyes narrowing when Tom shrugged at her, his lips curling into a grin. She wanted to smack it off his face. Professors weren’t hot chocolate experts, and even if by some drop of a hat, they _were_ , they definitely were not capable of replicating something that tasted so much like home.

“I _did_ stop by a cafe for the rest, but I’m not without a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to drinks. I also got you some crepes, freshly baked. I thought they’d pair nicely with the cocoa.”

Hermione didn’t say anything for some time, trying to discern what she felt. That didn’t stop her from glaring at him and taking another sip, however.

After a minute of silently glaring, swallowing back another mouthful of the drink, she found no indication that he, too, believed she was unfit for duty and in need of coddling.

“I also brought Rumchata in the event you wanted something stronger.”

Hermione’s brow quirked, her mouth separating from the cup in surprise.

 _Well_ , she thought, _that was unexpected._

“Are you trying to get me drunk, professor?” Hermione inquired, unable to stop the teasing note in her own voice when Tom’s face blanked and his mouth spasmed. It was endearing. She couldn’t recall ever seeing something that human on his face before.

Tom, for all his attempts at trying to fit in the mortal realm, never quite fit. Whether it was his face, the things he said, or how he looked at her: he was otherworldly.  Like he’d been lifted from the pages of a magical book and transplanted in her world.

“That was certainly not the intention. I assure you that I came with all the good intentions to—”

“Tom,” Hermione interrupted, setting down her cup on the coffee table before reaching into the bag he’d left there and brandishing the bottle. It was solid in her hand. Smooth. It’d pair nicely with the hot chocolate. It’d taste better than the crepes. “Just shut up and get the bottle open, will you?”

Tom’s mouth clicked shut without question, and it was only after handing the bottle over, his fingers brushing against hers over the smooth glass, that she realized just how much of a mistake that was.

* * *

In his arms, Hermione found herself.

His mouth pressed against hers, bitter and sweet with the remnants of his spiked drink. She savored it, tongue laving over the bottom of his mouth before forcing him back into the couch to straddle his thighs.

Her heart was pulsing in her chest, her ears ringing with the sound of her own breaths and his groans.

 _You shouldn’t be doing this_ , a voice whispered into the back of her head as soon as she tore her mouth away to kiss along his jaw, teeth catching on the skin before dragging it into her mouth to suck a mark against the column of his throat.

 _I know_ , she replied at the same time her hands splayed over his shoulders, fingers digging into his collar before wrenching his shirt apart. The buttons scattered across the living room floor, but Hermione was too far gone to care. Tom seemed to be as well, if the black in his eyes was any indication.

“Hermione,” he groaned, and then his hands were threading through her hair and dragging her head up to his lips. He devoured her, his eyes wide and intent as his teeth caught her bottom lip and nipped it. It stung, but Hermione didn’t mind—

 _Please don’t_ , her consciousness begged her to see reason, to cling to _sense_. She shouldn’t be sleeping with this professor, not after being emotionally compromised from being dismissed. But god, she needed to take the edge off, to pour her emotions somewhere.

Hermione growled into the kiss and shoved him into the couch before taking control, biting into his mouth and dragging her nails into his chest.

“ _Beautiful_ ,” Tom managed to say between her harsh nips, her nails falling to his belt before working it off. The compliment hardly registered. It wasn’t about beauty. This wasn’t love. This wasn’t anything but her working off the edge, savoring the taste of his mouth—

“ _If only you could_ —” Hermione didn’t let him finish. Within moments of loosening his belt, she was unbuttoning his trousers and palming his bare flesh. He pushed into her hand, his own hand in her hair becoming so tight it burned.

Everything devolved into chaos.

Tom’s hand fell to the curve of her hip, digging into the sliver of skin that had become exposed and forced her up. Her legs closed around his waist, her hand falling away from his cock to settle over his shoulders for want of something to hold onto.

Everything was spinning.

“ _Ow_ ,” Hermione hissed when his hand wrenched her head to the side, baring her neck to his gaze and teeth bit at the skin. Pain rocked through, but she didn't dare complain, didn’t beg him to stop when he forced her back into the couch—the same place she’d pinned him—and the hand not tearing her hair straight from her scalp, gripped the hem of her pajama bottoms and yanked.

“You _asshole_ ,” Hermione groaned when he bit her harder, leaving no doubt in her mind that this would bruise. “What are you—” the words caught in her throat when he tore his mouth away from her neck to look at her.

His eyes were smoldering.

“Shut up.”

He didn’t give her time to react. In a span of a second, he dragged her pants as far as they could go, desperate and efficient and quick, and released his hold on her hair to drop to his knees between her trembling legs. All without his eyes leaving hers.

“For once, just—” His hand curled over the waistband of her underwear and tugged. She lifted, allowing this, heart aflame. Her heart was racing, beads of sweat gathering over her forehead, burning and needing what the glint in his eyes suggested. Promised.

 _I’m going to devour you_ , they said.

Her insides wrenched. God, did she hope so.

“— _feel_. Quiet your thoughts and let go.”

He threw her leg over his shoulder, his tongue and mouth tasting along the inside of her knee and up. She clenched, her hand settling over the arm of the couch while the other dug into his dark waves. She tugged it, yanked and pulled, desperate to move him higher.

She was slick for him, the familiar burn like melted wax rolling from the top of a candle. She was so aroused she could barely stand it.

“Then take them. Take my thoughts away,” Hermione groaned when his teeth nipped her inner thigh, tracing unseen and unknowable patterns on her skin. She clenched her hand in his hair in retaliation, purring with satisfaction when some of the strands tore from his scalp.

“If you think you can, that is.”

Tom froze beneath her. His eyes, dark and bottomless and thick with desire, shuttered. They were unreadable.

 _Oh_.

Hermione could only swallow, her insides clenching when a slow smile spread along his face. She didn’t recognize that look.

“Why Hermione, is that a _challenge?_ ” Tom purred into the side of her leg, his eyes fluttering shut to suck a deep breath, as if he were _smelling_ her skin, before opening them. His eyes were lethal. Shrewd and calculating. Hermione’s insides twisted, more of her essence spilling from her cunt.

A slow, devious smile spread over her lips; the same one Tom had worn when he’d had been trapped in her interrogation room and utterly at her mercy.

“And if it is? What are you going to do about it?”

Tom didn’t reply. His eyes said it all.

With his lips twisting into a feral grin, his mouth pushed against her folds, his tongue seeking out the nub just above her opening. She seized up, her breath stuttering out of her lungs at the sensation, legs spasming.

She closed her eyes, a moan burning up her throat as her fingers yanked on his head. She wanted him closer, wanted that heat inside her. He held fast, however. A hand settled over her hip, pinning it down before she could rut against him, chase after the pleasure curling over her spine.

The flat of his tongue flicked and teased at her clit, unbearably slow. He took his time, dragging out each moan she couldn’t swallow back as he sucked along the flesh, devouring her.

It was too much, and too little, all at once. She couldn’t get off this way, not when his tongue grazed, sucked her clit between his lips in a rhythm she could not anticipate. It was driving her mad, this pace. The fact that he wasn’t letting her move, that he was taking and _taking_ without letting her off, exacerbating her frustration.

“ _Tom_ ,” his name fell from her lips when his hand parted her folds and plunged two fingers inside. It stretched her, burning and setting her aflame. She almost came from that alone, her own nights of fearing for her life leaving no time at all to seek out her own pleasure.

“Stop teasing and _just_ —” Tom nipped at her clit, and her eyes shot open, a cry ripping out of her. It was the worst thing she’d ever experienced, and yet, this pain, she wanted him to do it again. She struggled against him, pushing and jerking in his face for more, savoring the sensation of his tongue smoothing over her clit, of offsetting that pain with that skilled press of his tongue and the thrust of his fingers.

_Please._

A pressure began to build inside her, hot and insistent. She writhed in the couch, her toes curling and back arching. Tom didn’t let her up. Not once. He was stronger than he looked, as she’d expected him to be. She only wished he hadn’t been using that strength to keep her at the precipice, to stop her from rutting against his face and getting herself off.

His eyes flickered up to hers, and she bit her lip until it bled, the droplet of blood a skin crawling sensation she paid little mind to. This pain was part of the play, was only temporary, no match for the instant a third finger shoved inside her and curled.

Hermione’s vision went dark—

She huffed, a whine and whimper leaving seconds thereafter when Tom’s mouth and fingers pulled away, his lips still close enough for his breath to fan along every inch of her sensitive cunt. Hermione bared her teeth, ready to snap.

She'd been so _close._

“You  _prick_ ,” Hermione seethed at the same time the sound of fabric hitting the floor echoed in the room. She paid it no mind, the throbbing of her sex overcoming her faculties, stealing what remained of her patience and sanity. If, she even had any at all.

She wanted to murder him, to close her legs around his bloody neck and _squeeze._ The satisfied look on Tom’s face only worsened the violent impulse.

“Oh, love,” Tom sighed after a minute, voice low and more humored than it had the right to be. His hand fell away from her wet cunt, smearing her juices along the outside of her thigh until it stopped on the swell of her knee.  “No need to fret.”

_No need to fret?_

Hermione wanted to laugh, the derision in her chest like acid in her lungs. She didn’t. She never got the chance.

Without warning, Tom tore the laugher straight out of her lungs. He pulled her leg up, throwing her entirely off balance. She squealed, her hands windmilling until they rested on the armrests of the seat, her head smacking into the seat cushion.

“What do you think you're doing?” She complained, eyes snapping to his at the same time he forced the leg still hanging over his shoulder up against the padding of the couch, bending her in half. Her stomach quivered, protesting against the discomfiting position.

She wasn’t flexible, she wasn’t—

Tom forced himself inside her, cock burying inside without a word of warning. Hermione moaned, her nails clawing at the armrests, clenching tight around him before he pulled out and thrust back in.

 _Damn_.

“Shagging you, of course,” Tom replied through clenched teeth, setting a wild pace that had her spine arching. He was thick, enough to hurt, enough to make her chest wheeze. She writhed beneath him, her free leg curling around his waist to pull him closer.

 _More_.

It hurt. He was tearing her in two, splitting her apart at the seams, but she couldn’t stop. She pushed him closer, eyes at half mast as she looked at him, unraveled him.

He was—

“ _Yes.”_

—a monster. A thing of beauty.

His fingers found her clit, pushed and tugged and flicked, and she was lost. Her eyes fell shut, the sound of his own breaths no match for the rush of blood flooding her ears.

She clenched around him, strangled him, sucked him, relishing in the stuttering of his hips, of the sound of her own name leaving his mouth.

“ _Hermione. Hermione. Hermione.”_

It was better than holy prayer. She laughed, breathless and wanting, pushing back into his hips, into the slap of his body against hers.

She came with his name on her tongue, the slant of his eyes on hers.

And still, he didn’t stop. Not when he dragged her from out of the couch, cock still buried inside her and fucked her over the nightstand in her bedroom.

Or on her bed.

Or over her bathroom sink.

She lost count of the times she came to the press of his lips on her mouth and his hand wound around her neck.

* * *

It was a mistake, but she couldn’t take it back. Her shoulders were marked, her cunt swollen and aching from the blunt force of his touch.

He had left, but she knew he’d be back.

It was in his eyes.

It was in his skin.

_You’re mine._

It wasn’t love, but at that moment, with the bed sheets twisted around her ankles, it was a lot like it.


	8. The Devil

**1992**

“Tom?”

He turned, a smile twisting over his lips at the familiar sight of her wild hair and shining eyes. She was smiling too, two cups of cocoa in both of her hands.

She had become a constant. Her mother’s cocoa like muscle memory along his senses whenever the scent of chocolate from the bakeries on his walk to the orphanage settled over his senses.

“I’ve got something for you.”

“Aside from the cocoa?”

Hermione laughed, and it was radiant. It was so sweet it made his teeth ache, made him pry the cup from her hands and take a gulp of the cocoa to settle the churning in his stomach. He wanted that warmth to never end.

She settled beside him in the seconds he was savoring the spicy notes of the drink.

“Yes, I’ve got you a book! You said there isn’t much to read in the orphanage and well—” a flush curled over her cheeks before she was shoving the book into his lap. He failed to hide his grin.

“Here. It’s not much, but I like the stories and the pictures.”

Tom set down the cup to slide his fingers against the cover. It was old leather. It was rough against his fingertips, but he didn’t stop exploring the printed letters on its cover.

**_THE BROTHERS GRIMM FAIRY TALES._ **

It would be the first object he owned. No one ever owned anything at the orphanage.

A smile, one he couldn’t help but show, twisted up his face. Then, he was looking at her, ripping his attention away from the book.

She was smiling too, the sunlight from the morning sun making her skin glow a faint gold.

“Thank you.”

* * *

The months came and went without a word from Billy Stubbs, Amy Benson, and Dennis Bishop.

But there were whispers in the shadows.

Little murmurings that filtered through the darkened hallways where Tom tread. He couldn’t make them out, discern what they meant, but—

He heard them all the same, as he laid down and read the book Hermione had given him from cover to cover, unable to pull away.

The stories were fanciful and scary, at times. Just like he’d imagined the world was, outside of the suffering in this cold and dank place.

The whispers only grew louder, in those days.

_Tom. Tom. Tom._

He ignored them until he couldn’t anymore.

* * *

“Where’s my book?”

Tom was standing in front in front of Billy Stubbs, his face still carrying the traces of his fists on his cheeks. Amy Benson was at his back, carrying something in her arms. There were other children too. But they averted their eyes when Tom looked at them, as if remembering the way he’d lost it.

Tom hoped that Billy hadn’t forgotten that too.

“Book? Haven’t seen it.”

Tom clenched his fists, something furious and gnawing in his chest begging to be let out. It was no longer whisper, but a roar. A rush.

_He’s lying. He’s lying. He’s lying._

“You’re lying,” Tom snapped, stepping forward until he was towering over the sandy-haired boy. Billy was sitting on the steps in front of the orphanage. In plain view of pedestrians on the street and Mrs. Cole’s beady eyes.

“And what if I am? What are you going to do about it? Hit me?” The boy sneered at him, and Tom’s fingers itched, suddenly hungry to see the _red, red, red_ hiding behind the boy’s cheeks.

The book was _his_. Hermione had given it to him. It wasn’t for anyone else to touch.

“Give it back.”

Billy stood up, his face now in Tom’s. Tom wondered what would happen if he bit off the boy’s nose, if he snapped his teeth and clenched as tightly as it could go.

“No. It’s not _yours._ We share everything here, freak.”

Tom stepped closer until he was chest to chest with Billy, until he was looking at the older boy straight in the eye, sucking in the same air. Something fearful flashed in the boy’s eyes, and Tom relished it, the roaring in the back of his head purred.

They should all be scared. If they took his things, if they hurt his friend, there would be no place in the world that they could run.

Hermione was his.

He refused to share her.

“Give me back the book, or else. I won’t ask for it again.”

But Billy held his ground, he lifted his chin and glared at Tom straight in the eyes.

“I’m not scared of you, _Riddle_. Just because you got yourself a _girlfriend_ doesn’t mean shit.”

Billy brushed past him, shoulder knocking against Tom’s. The children were all quiet around him, but it was Amy Benson who drew his anger, who caught his attention when she laughed at him. She was standing by the stairs, her hands wrapped around a body of fur.

 _A rabbit_.

It was the same one Billy had been holding weeks before.

* * *

For her, the world would bow. But if they refused, then he’d make them.

It was with this thought in his head that he how he found himself standing over the Billy Stubb’s pet, the rabbit’s wide eyes gazing up at him. Amy had left it in its cage after the group of children had stormed off, taking great delight in mocking him.

It was a pitiful creature. Harmless. It trembled when he unlocked its cage, his hands grasping around it and bringing it into his arms.

It was warm to the touch. Scalding.

It didn’t quell the rage in his heart, the ice flooding his veins.

_Hermione. Hermione. Hermione._

Her name guided him through the winding hallway in the orphanage, past the tiny common area reserved for their pets and things, and beyond, until he was standing outside amongst the leaves.

* * *

 “W-what did you _do_?”

Tom looked up from his book, having found it hours before amongst Billy’s things beneath his bed. It was in the same state that it had been when Hermione had first given it to him, but still, he turned through the pages looking for torn pieces and ink stains.

“Whatever do you mean?” Tom asked, taking cruel pleasure at the dried tears in the boy’s eyes and the red flush on his face. It suited him, that face. It was what he deserved, what they _all_ deserved if they dared touch what belonged to him.

“Y-you killed my _rabbit._ ”

Tom blinked at him, then, with utmost care that he reserved for Hermione, and Hermione alone, closed his book and laid it on his bed. He did not take his eyes away from Billy, delighting in the way Billy’s fingers clenched into little fists and his shoulders began to tremble.

_Not so brave anymore, are you?_

“You had a rabbit?” Tom queried, nearly laughing when Billy sputtered and actual tears began to run from the corners of his eyes. It was growing difficult to keep himself together at such a display.

“Yo-you _monster_ ,” Billy hissed, snapping toward him with his fists raised. Tom was quick, he didn’t let the boy reach him before he was shooting up and kicking the boy’s legs right from under him. The boy cried out, body tumbling to the ground.

Tom followed him on the way down, pinning Billy’s legs with his and winding his hands around his neck. Billy struggled, punching and hitting, but Tom didn’t register the pain. All of it faded.

All that remained was the _red, red, red_ of his violence, of the chase.

 _He will hurt her_.

The voice was whispering in his head, a warning.

 _He will break her_.

Tom squeezed the boy’s neck until Billy’s face went purple, his eyes bugging out until spittle and tears ran down the corners of his mouth. A wave of disgust flooded him at the pitiful display, unable to stop the sneer that curved over his mouth.

“And what if I am? What are you doing to do, _Billy?”_ Tom remarked, squeezing the boy all the tighter until Billy’s squirming began to taper down. Tom watched it all, took him in from the glazed look in his eyes to the slack in his pink lips. “Are you going to _kill_ me?”

The boy didn’t reply. Tom went on as if he had, as if the boy could speak through the nails Tom dug into his neck.

“No, you’re not going to do _anything_.”

Billy’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and Tom let him go, pulled away from Billy’s unmoving body before wiping his hand over his ugly tunic and trousers to get the stain of him off. It was disgusting. There were tears and spittle in his hands.

“If you know what’s good for you, Billy, you and your friends will not touch my things. If you so much as _look_ at this book or Hermione, your dead rabbit will the be the least of your problems.”

Tom didn’t wait for an answer, snatching the book from atop his bed, and stepped out of his room. A smile so wide on his face that no one, not even the children clustered by his bedroom door that had heard the commotion, questioned it.

* * *

It took almost a week for the consequences of his actions to come to a head.

Tom, in hindsight, should have expected it. It was often how things went.

When life brought him good—blessed him with the soft and gentle vision of Hermione’s smile—it had to be offset with something.

Something cruel.

_Cold._

* * *

“Pack your things.”

It hadn’t been a request, but a command. Tom stood his ground, refusing to wither beneath the matron’s cruel stare. As much as he hated this place, hated the chill in his bones and the razorblade words in his ears, this place was all he knew.

_It was where Hermione was._

“Don’t make me repeat myself. Your new caretakers will be getting you tomorrow. I won’t have you staying in my house a moment longer.”

Tom clenched his jaw, tightening his hold on the book in his arms. It was Hermione’s, it was always hers. She’d lent it to him the previous week, wagging her finger at him and demanding that he return it as soon as he was done.

He wasn’t. And it seemed, he never would be.

* * *

Tom didn’t want to look at her.

They were under their tree, all the books she’d lent him a pile around his legs as he tried to settle the anxieties thrumming beneath his skin.

He didn’t want to go. Not when he’d found her, when she made the cold go away. She was everything, she was—

“I’m leaving.”

He still hadn’t looked up from his feet, tracing the lines of the grass and roots as they swirled underneath the earth’s surface.

“What?” Tom clenched his jaw, his ears ringing with those haunting whispers that chased him through the hallways, that followed him into his dreams and nightmares. They were his mother’s words in his head.

“I don’t understand.”

Tom looked at her then, unable to avoid her face when her voice had cracked. Her eyes were wide and confused, her mouth opening and closing as if she didn’t know what to say.

“I’m going away, Hermione,” Tom repeated, much slower this time. She needed to understand, to see just how much it pained him to say the words.

This would be the last time he saw her for—

He didn’t know how long. He didn’t even know where he was going. Mrs. Cole had refused to tell him as he’d packed most of yesterday evening.

“You’re going away?” She was near tears, her eyes now red-rimmed and wide. He hated it. He didn’t want to make her cry; he didn’t want to leave her alone.

“Yes, I have to.”

“But why? I don’t understand. It’s still the middle of the school _year._ ”

“Hermione, it’s okay.” He touched her hands, gripped them between his finger, committing each ink stain and indent to memory. He didn’t know how long he’d be away. He had to relish this, remember her. “I’ll find you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”


	9. The Tower

**2018**

Harry rubbed at his eyes, a bone-deep weariness settling over his body that threatened to drag him under. It was terrible what he had done. But, there was no other way to put it considering the situation he had before him.

Hermione was in danger, and Dumbledore—

Harry grit his teeth to fight off the wave of irritation that swept through him.

_He would have her take the fall to catch their killer._

It wasn’t enough that they had Riddle under their radar, anticipating his moves and watching the way he sniffed around Hermione. No, Dumbledore would have it so Hermione fell into his grasp, as _bait_.

Harry refused. He would sooner cut off his own arm than allow another life to be lost, than for Hermione to fall into Voldemort’s grasp and—

Harry didn’t want to think about what would happen if she did.

Letting out another tired sigh, resigned to the fact that Hermione might never forgive him for this, he was just about to turn in for the day when his phone began to vibrate in his pocket.

He fished it out, the color draining from his cheeks at ‘ _Dumbledore’_ flashing in the Caller ID.

He answered it, yanking his keys from his pocket and storming out of his borrowed office at the station at top-notch speed.

“What’s wrong?”

In all the time Harry had just about displaced half of the Chicago police force for this investigation, not once, had Dumbledore called him on his personal phone.

The other side was silent, the white noise only serving to make the unease bubbling in his stomach explode into full-blown panic.

_No._

Then—

“She’s gone.”

* * *

When Hermione awoke, it was a slow and gradual pull. Awareness tugged at her, pulling and _pulling_ her away from the darkness behind her eyelids and into the harsh and white lights beating against her skull.

She wanted to throw her pillow over her face, to block it out. And almost did just that, if not for the fact that there was no pillow off to the side of her where it typically lied. No, it was barren. The sheets soft and silky, unlike the Egyptian cotton fabric she’d preferred to sleep in.

Hermione groaned, pushing her hands to her face, head now spinning and jerking. It was like she’d been beaten over the head, except she hadn’t been. Not from what she could remember.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

Hermione stilled, the sound of his familiar and decadent drawl enough to jolt her with an awareness she hadn’t had seconds before. She opened her eyes, slowly sitting up from the bed she was lying on and settled over Tom’s looming figure.

He had a tray in his hands, a teacup and plates and other miscellaneous household things piled over it. The smell came to her after the sight, and her mouth both watered and dried with nausea at the familiar scent of eggs and bacon and— _was that English crumpets?_

“I was beginning to wonder when you would wake.”

She swallowed, unable to think of a response when he began to walk toward her, the smell growing stronger the nearer he came.

It was strange. In all the time she’d woken up from a deep sleep, she’d never felt this weak. Everything was muted, faint at the edges as if they’d been rubbed off by sandpaper.

“T-tom, where are we?”

However, even with her faculties dulled the way they were, she knew for a fact she was not in her room.

 _Hell_ —

Her eyes ripped away from his, exploring the rest of the space she’d woken up in. Her senses sharpening the longer she remained awake and aware; no longer weighed down by the heavy cowl of sleep that had settled over her.

— _I don’t think I’m even in the same apartment building._

The room was large and windowless, furnished with modern decor she herself could never afford with her salary.

“Safe,” was Tom’s response.

It was the way he said it that Hermione’s attention snapping back to his, that chased away whatever remnants of sleep still clinging to the corners of her eyes.

Tom was standing off the side of the bed, his eyes sharp and open. Swallowing, Hermione pushed closer into the headboard at the back of the bed, to get a better look.

He wasn’t wearing the same thing he’d worn when he’d shown up at her apartment. His hair was styled in the same neat style he arranged it into, except the curls were loose. There was no hair product pinning it to his head.

He was relaxed, more than she’d ever seen him.

But it was his eyes that gave her pause, that made her freeze up entirely when he laid the tray of food in front of her with care and sat on the side of the bed to level her with a fond look.

“Safe from what?” Hermione asked after a beat, her mind spinning to come up with answers but finding that she had none. She didn’t know where she was, didn’t know why Tom was looking at her as if he wanted to _eat her_ —

“I’ve made you breakfast. I understand that you must be famished,” Tom said, ignoring her question to pull a small plate from the arrangement in front of her and slide an English crumpet onto the white porcelain. “It was an exhausting night. I was quite—”

Tom didn’t continue, but he didn’t need to. His eyes said it all.

Hermione’s cheeks flamed, the memories of what they’d done, of how he’d felt inside her enough to breathe life into her limbs, to loosen her tongue.

“Tom, _where_ are we? Why am I here?” Hermione demanded, a hysterical edge in her voice. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t fathom what was happening. It was only the gleam of the butter knife in the tray in front of her that managed to calm the panic that wanted to wash through her.

“Oh, _Hermione dearest_ — _”_

There was a nagging in her head. A terrifying, all-encompassing, murmur that pressed against the folds of her brain. It sounded a lot like her, like _reason_ and _suspicion._

_No. No. No._

“— _It is I, my love, who knocks at your door. It is not the ghost, it is not the one who once stopped at your window.” **1**_

The darkness she’d seen shadows of from the moment she’d stepped into the interrogation room slipped into the cracks of his eyes, more open and naked than ever before.

It was a chasm.

It threatened to swallow her whole.

* * *

Harry stormed into Hermione’s building, the world flashing around him in a kaleidoscope of color as he tried to make sense of it all.

_She’s gone._

_She’s gone._

Harry couldn’t believe it. He didn’t bother with the elevator on the first floor, turning to the stairway in the back of the building and climbing it two-steps at a time.

He burst through the door to the second floor, having gone to her apartment on multiple occasions for both personal and professional reasons. He knew the route like the back of his hand, but now—

There was police tape, investigators and forensics cluttering the hall. It reeked of cigarette smoke and urine, the usual in such a threadbare apartment complex in the poorest part of the city, but Harry wasn’t phased.

Everyone parted for him, their glances varying from pitying to disappointed at every turn, but Harry paid them no mind. Not when he reached the open doorway and stepped inside, his eyes alighting on her apartment.

It was not what he was expecting.

When he’d broken several different traffic rules on his way to get to her apartment, he’d been expecting utter chaos. But at this moment, Hermione’s apartment could not have been more desolate.

There were no blood smears on the wall and signs of a struggle. The apartment was just as clean as Hermione kept it.

Harry sucked in a deep breath through his open mouth, eyes taking in the couch at the far end of the room, a blanket folded atop the armrest. The remote was on the other, the television shut off. It was normal, albeit clean.

The only thing amiss, and perhaps, the most unsettling of it all, was that its owner was not there.

“Harry.”

He made no move to acknowledge Dumbledore, not when he was bordering on panic. He couldn’t afford to do this here, not when there were so many people to witness the spectacle should he break.

“The officers kept watch of the apartment from all evening. The entrance was monitored, a patrol set up around the building. No one came in without, at least, being checked in by an officer on duty.”

After finally reigning in his breaths, Harry turned to face in the direction Dumbledore’s voice had come. He didn’t want to have this conversation, to be confronted with the weight of both his and Dumbledore’s fuck up.

“Unfortunately, there are no security cameras in this apartment, so we are unable to discern the precise time that Hermione could have left—”

“Left?” Harry interrupted, gaze narrowing. Hermione hadn’t _left._ She would never willingly leave with a serial killer. For all the slander and nonsense espoused by the news, Hermione would sooner chew out her own arm before she ever went against her moral code.

“You think she left _willingly_?” Harry's voice was clipped, his patience running thin with the late hours he’d been putting since Hermione had been taken off the case.

“It is a possibility that she might have, if only to confront the killer on her own.”

Harry sputtered. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Harry let out a derisive laugh, the sound sharp and biting even to his own ears, but he was too far gone now to even bother reigning it in.

“Oh, while we’re at it, Hermione invited Voldemort over for a spot of tea, too? Maybe asked for pointers on how to best gut the next victims over breakfast?” Harry snapped, refusing to back down when Dumbledore’s eyes sharpened.

“That is not what I am suggesting, Harry. It has merely been pointed out that there is no evidence of a struggle, no indication that anyone has entered her apartment, and, given her decisions, before we thought it best to remove her, she was more than willing to cut corners to confront Voldemort on her own.”

Harry’s lips thinned into a line, unable to argue to the contrary. She _had_ been working from behind the scenes, that much was true. The implications weren’t good, but fuck, if Dumbledore thought he was going to accept this lying down, the old man didn’t know Harry as well as he thought.

“Harry.”

Harry sucked in another breath to stop the retort from climbing out of his throat. He waited, if only to avoid having this conversation drag on for longer than necessary.

“I don’t believe she would turn her back on her ethical beliefs. On the contrary, I believe it was her values that made her both a target, and it possible for her to be taken.”

Harry didn’t have anything to say to that.

All the anger and rage and fury that had possessed him at the twinkle in Dumbledore’s eye, fled him.

Harry was just empty.

_Please, don’t let her die._

* * *

“I wondered when you would realize the truth. _”_

Hermione reached for the knife in seconds, panic and horror atrophying her insides. Her fingers closed around his, but not before he was on her, his eyes dancing with delight and mirth and hunger. The sound of the breakfast tray hitting the ground hardly registered, lost to the roar of her chaotic thoughts.

_God, so much hunger._

She bashed her forehead into his, a twist of satisfaction shooting up her spine at his pained howl, before positioning the knife and stabbing it into his arm the same instant he made to block it, watching the way his eyes widened as the pain registered in his brain.

“Yo-you—!” Hermione shouted, her stomach wrenching with a need to throw up. She gagged, hardly registering the warm rush of blood that splattered over her hand and shirt. It was the same one Tom had worn the previous night before they’d—

The reality only made the situation all the worse, made the harrowing reality of what she’d done too real.

_No. No. No._

“I’m almost offended that it took you so long to figure it out, but, given the circumstances, I can hardly fault you. Harry was a quite clever, shielding you from the truth while simultaneously discrediting you.”

“ _Voldemort_ ,” she spat the name as if it was the vilest thing she’d ever said, and it was. It was acid on her tongue, in her throat, in her damn  _lungs._

She yanked on the knife, shouting with frustration when To— _Voldemort’s_ —hand curled over hers and refused to let her drag it back and stab it straight into his jugular. Even if it meant getting more of him on her, anything was better than this, than the weight of what she’d done fraying her at the seams.

Her mind was cleaving itself in two.

She had known it from the first day, from the very _moment_ he had stepped into her interrogation room, and she had had—

She wanted to scrub her skin raw, until it bled.

He was all over her. His hands, his mouth, his eyes, his _blood_ : she was so wrapped in him that there was no shower in the world that could get him out.

_And they had all known it, and yet, they’d never told me._

“And still, they’ve failed you, Hermione _,”_ Tom murmured above her, as if lifting the words straight from her head. She reared back as if burned, unable to stand the earnest and fond gleam in his eyes. He was _insane._ Unhinged. “They sacrificed you. Let you walk this path, blind and naked, all to tempt the devil himself _._ ”

If he thought she would ever commit murder, agree to walk this route of dead bodies in the snow while families shook with terror, he was mistaken.

“But they didn’t know, did they?” Tom squeezed her hand hard, and she cried out, a white-hot pain curling up her elbow. She refused to let go, however. “You were _never_ the bait. No, never you.”

She kicked beneath him, writhing and twisting, her other hand coming up to punch him in the face. He allowed it, head snapping to the side. Yet still, his hand did not let her go, his body bore down hers, crushing her into the bed and pushing the knife’s handle back into her chest.

“Shut up _! Shut up, y-you_ —”

He wrenched her arm back, more blood spraying over her chest as the knife carved through the meat of his forearm. It was jagged and frayed at the edges, but Hermione barely glanced at it before he was on her again, the knife now clattering to the ground.

_“You were _always_ the prize.” _

* * *

Mrs. Wagner, I’m going to need a list of all the tenants that live in the complex.”

It was bordering 4 in the morning, and still, they’d found no trace of where Hermione could have gone. They’d been scouring the city since they’d discovered she was missing, publishing notice after notice urging the public to come forward with even a sliver of information on where she could have gone.

But so far, all they’d received were anonymous tips that were as outlandish as they were false.

“I-well, of course, sir.” The old woman didn’t hesitate, even when Harry knew she was just as desperate to get them out of her complex as they were to leave.

“I apologize for the state of the list. It’s been some time since we’d had someone new move in. We don’t really have many breaking down the doors to rent with us, as you can tell.”

Harry took the sheet, shooting her a grateful smile, before reading through the list of names, phone numbers, dates for the next upcoming lease renewal, and the apartment numbers that corresponded to that information.

There were 75 apartments in the complex. All of which were occupied with the exception of five on the upper floors and two in Hermione’s same floor. Aside from those details, there wasn’t much to be gleaned from the list.

Hermione’s flat had been marked for a lease renewal, but otherwise, none of the names corresponded with the list of the suspects he’d tacked onto the wall at the station.

 _Or,_ Harry thought, _the name Tom Riddle, more like._

There had to be something he was missing, but what that was, Harry couldn’t pin down.

* * *

“When I saw you give your statement at that press conference, I knew it was _you_.”

Tom twisted her arm, yanking her up and slamming her face down on the bed. She screamed into the mattress, her other hand clawing back, latching onto anything she could, hoping that she caught the wound on his arm and made him _hurt._

“You might have forgotten me, but I _never_ —” Tom twisted her arm behind her back, her elbow straining and bending. She tried not to whimper at the pain that shot up her spine. He could break her arm like this, snap it in half if he so desired. All it would take was a push and then, she’d be down an arm. “—forgot you.”

He breathed the final words into her ear, his hot mouth and tongue grazing the skin. She shuddered, revulsion twisting in her stomach.

“I promised you that I would come for you, Hermione.”

Hermione sobbed into the pillow, seizing up when he kissed her ear, his voice dropping into something comforting and sweet and earnest. The tone only made her cry harder, the weight of her own sins finally catching up to her.

“ _Shhh_ , Hermione, it’s okay,” he breathed into her ear, the hand not pinning her down threading through her hair.

Hermione wanted to laugh until her throat hurt, to bite and chew into his flesh and tear it straight from the bone.

Harry and Dumbledore had thrown her to the wolves.

She had slept with a _murderer_.

_None of this was okay._

_Nothing ever could be._

“I’m here. I’m sorry for making you wait so long.”

Hermione didn’t respond, unable to when Tom’s fingers scratching and teasing along her head fell away and then, there was something sharp and thin jabbing into her neck. She trembled, pushing and squirming, uncaring of the pain the movement wrought, of his how her arm _howled_.

Then, the world began to spin.

Swirls of darkness gathered at the corners, the weight of Tom’s arm fading into nothing at the same time he turned her on her back, his face coming into view.

Hermione relaxed into the bed beneath her, a rush of warmth coiling in her stomach that spread out, ate away at her bones, melted her muscles, and dragged her under.

“I will _never_ abandon you.”

* * *

In her dreams, the name Tom tasted of her mother’s hot cocoa on her tongue; smelled of old ink and leather book covers; and glimmered like the coils of a serpent.

_Oh._

The black consumed her.

_Tom, the orphan boy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 - This is a stanza from Pablo Neruda's poem _The Question_.


	10. Judgment

**2018**

Death was a lot like being in love.

Like an orgasm, short and sweet. The bliss short-lived. But the memory of its spindly fingers weaving through one’s nerves, now that, that was eternal.

That was love.

Tom knew it from the moment Hermione's lips had touched his, from the moment her hand settled over the rhythmic pulsing of his heart and drove the proof of it straight into his chest.

It had hurt.

It had festered, decayed and frayed.

But he cherished it, all the same. It was nubile, that tenderness. Immature.

She hadn’t been ready.

She’d been too afraid to see.

For her, he’d do anything. She had to know that, to understand that this was for her. That the bodies in the snow, the messages in the notes, the kisses on her brow, and the chocolate in her mouth: all of it was hers.

She was his.

Just as much as he was hers.

He would make her see.


End file.
